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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ^ 



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LABYE LILLIAN' 



OTHER POEMS. 



BY E.,YOUNG 






LEXINGTON, GEORGIA: 

1859. 






Entered according to an Act of Congress, iu the year 1859, 
By E. YOUNG, 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United State? for the Northern Dis- 
trict of Georgia. 



A. J. BKADY, STEREOTYFEK AXD PRINTER, XEW-YOEK, 



TO 

MY PARENTS AND BROTHERS, 

THIS BOOK IS 
AS A 

TOKEN OF THE LOVE 

OF* 

THEIR AFFECTIONATE SON AND BROTHER, 

Edward. 



COSTENTS. 4 

PAGE. 

The Ladye Lillian , 9 

Imogen 74 

Some Truths 78 

Song of the Smithy 80 

Plaint of the Manner's Widow 82 

My Philosophy 85 

Wild Flowers 87 

Life is Beautiful. 89 

Song of the Messenger Bird 92 

The Awaking 95 

A Spring-time Matin 98 

The Feast of the Dead 99 

The Chippewa Lover's Song 102 

Song of the Rejected Lover 104 

Cheer up ! lOG 

Is it well with Thee? 108 

Yet to be 110 

Triumphant 113 

A Character 116 

To an acquitted Murderer 119 

A Widower's Lament over his Daughter 123 

Evening Thoughts • 125 

Put Money in Thy Purse 127 

To Spring 129 

My Brother's Grave 131 

The Dead 134 

An Invitation 136 

Lou 139 

The Palmetto Regiment at Churubusco .141 

A Wail for the Dead 146 

To Rosalie in Heaven 149 

Song of the Spirit 151 

On the Death of my Daughter 154 

The Spirit-Bird 157 

Reply of the Spirit-Bird 159 ' 

Better, much Better 162 

A Rhyme of the City 164 

The Finding of Sir John Franklin 177 



My Dear Brothers : 

Some years ago, wlieu I first contemplated publisliing 
a vokmie of mj verses, I wrote the Dedication which this one 
now bears. Since that time, two of the best hearts that ever 
throbbed have ceased to beat on earth forever. But I shall not, 
on that account, alter my Dedication. For if the spirits of those 
WQ have known and loved, do still at times, hold communion 
with us who yet remain on earth ; if, as I believe, the love that 
animates the soul in this life, still moves it in that, clianged 
only in degree, only in having grown more devoted and un- 
selfish ; then that love which every day of oar lives gave us 
some precious manifestation of its exhaustless depth, is stiii 
with us, and, though unseen, perhaps more efficient for our 
good than when it was bound in those dear and honored 
forms that our earthly eyes shall never see again. And if 
their love still lives, so also does their joy in ours, and it may, 
it will, it does gladden them in that Better Land, to know 
that we are not unmindful of the debt of love and gratitude 
we owe them 

Scattered abroad, and situated as we are now, it is hardly 
probable that w-e shall ever meet together again under one 
roof ; but distance, though it may divide us, can not sever 
the chains of fraternal love that bind us to each other ; hy 



VI TO MY BROTHERS. 

that invisible bond we are still one. Yes, my dear brothers, 
it is one of the greatest joys of my life, as it is of yours also, 
to know that we are indeed brothers ; that in our joys and 
sorrows we are sure of each other's sympathy ; that between 
us there is no mine and thine, but that yours is mine and 
mine is yours whenever the needs of either require it. 

As a slight testimonial of my love, accept this book. That 
it may be as successful as your love will wish it, is (for the 
pleasure it will give to you and other dear friends, quite as 
much as for the joy it will be to myself) the hope of 
Your Affectionate Brother, 

Edward. 



TO THE READER. 

With yon, kind reader, who may honor these pages with a 
perusal, I would have a word of prefatory and familiar chat 
— not by way of explaining the poems, for I venture to hope 
that they will be found of themselves sufficiently intelligible. 
I wish only to say that it is with some little trembling for the 
success of the venture that this work is launched upon the 
sea of Literature. Whether it is to be wafted safely into port 
by the genial breeze of public approbation ; to he wrecked 
upon the rocks of adverse criticism ; or — worst fate of all — 
to founder silently in the dead calm of universal indifference : 
time will decide. I hope for the best. 

Many of the shorter poems in this volume have been al- 
ready published, several years ago, in various literary jour- 
nals, and met, in that form, with a good degree of success. 
Whether they, and those that are now for the first time put 
in print, are worthy of being preserved in book form, is a 
question that I submit to your decision. That I think they 
contain enough of the spirit of poetry to entitle them to the 
distinction, is tme; if I did not, I should n^t have undertaken 



Vm TO THE EEADER. 

this publication, nor should I present it as a candidate for 
your patronage. 

It is, perhaps, due to those who may be disposed to criti- 
cise the work, and to myself, to say that my life has been 
passed at the work-bench, and that these poems were written 
during the few leisure hours that business allows a mechanic. 
I am well aware that however good an excuse this may be 
(if it is one) for writing bad poetry, it is none whatever for 
publishing it ; and I do not mention it with any view of de- 
precating criticism, but only enter it as a plea in mitigation 
of the penalty, if it shall be determined that, like Cinna, I am 
to be killed for my bad verses. 

If my book should be so fortunate as to v/iu your approval 

and patronage, I shall be glad and grateful : but if it fails, I 

shall endeavor to bear that result with fortitude, and to be 

content with the pleasure that the writing of my poems has 

afforded me. 

The Author. 



THE LADYE LILIiAN. 
I. 
A lordly castle stands majestically 

Upon a green hill, sloping 
Gently adown into a park's green bosom, 
Where dun deer feed, and spring-eyed daisies blossom ; 

An avenue, southward opeing 
Between green elms, leads to a smiling valley. 

11. 
Here, in this olden time, lives good Earl Godwin : 

(So do his vassals name him,) 
A Christian knight who, in his manhood's morn, 
To Palestine his sword and lance had borne. 

And from the cruel Paynim 
Rescued the land our Saviour's feet had trodden. 

III. 
For many miles around extends his manor, 

O'er borough, cot, and castles ; * 

Ten thousand serfs, strong-limbed and hardy wights, 



10 THE LADYE LILLIAK. 

With many franklins bold, and belted knights, 

As duly boimden vassals, 
Follow in peace and war his house's banner, 

IV. 

But other children hath he none to bless him 
And heir his wealth and honor. 

Save Ladye Lillian, his daughter fair, 

Who yet hath only felt the gentle air 
Of eighteen summers on her : 

And she is all he needeth to caress him. 



No poet when his soul was most impassioned 
With Beauty's starry gloamings — 

Created by the magic of his brain 

From airy nothing, peopling the domain 
Of his ideal dreamings 

With fairer forms than ever nature fashioned- 



VI. 

E'er saw a shape with more of beauty glowing 
Than is Earl Godwin's daughter. 

The blessed spirits who on viewless wing 

Beauty of form and soul to mortals bring. 
From their domain had brought her 

The rarest gifts they liad nt tlicir bestowing. 



THE LADYE LTLLIAN. 11 

VII. 

Aroimcl her brow a golden glory shone, 

Like that the poet painter 
In some rapt moment saw his pencil trace, 
(A shining symbol of Heaven's love and grace,) 

Around the forehead of a saint, or 
The Divine Mother, and her Diviner Son. 



VIII. 

And in her hazel eyes there shone the splendor 

Of a most loving nature ; 
And to her cheeks, where pearls and roses blent, 
Had beauty her divinest impress lent ; 

Yea, each particular feature 
So lovely was as if the heavens did send her 



IX. 

Into this world of coarsely fashioned clay, 

To show adoring mortals 
One of the forms and faces, all divine, 
That on our raptured spirit-sight will shine 

When we have passed the portals 
That usher us into the realm of Day. 

X. 

Her spotless soul with all fair things agreeing, 

By sorrow ne'er is clouded ; 
For evcrvthino- that livetli is to her 



12 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Of rarest pleasure a sweet minister ; 

And so her soul is crowded 
With pleasant thoughts that make a bliss of being. 



From morn till night her flute-like voice is ringing 

Throughout that lordly castle, 
Making such silvery music in each hall, 
As if there dwelt a spirit musical 

(To her sweet voice a vassal) 
Within the wainscoting that answered to her singing. 

XII. 

Her very presence is like sunshine, throwing 

From out her radiant spirit 
A light that gladdens every nook and room. 
The dimmest hall throws off its ancient gloom 

Whenever she draws near it ; 
Such brightness in her gladsome soul is glowing. 

XIII. 

Yet is not hers the frivolous lightness springing 

From a nature weak and poor, 
But rather ^tis the soul-full joy of one 
Whose spirit, with all good in unison, 

Feels in it evermore 
Mysterious harmonies that must break forth in singing. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 13 

XIV. 

Nor always uppermost tins throb of gladness ; 

For often o'er lier stealini^ 
There comes — she knows not whence, but feels her eyes 
Grow moist with tears, and in her soul arise — 

A strangely mingled feeling, 
A pleasing melancholy that is not sadness. 

XV. 

To win her love are many suitors striving ; 

But only two she favors, 
And each so equally that none may say 
Which yet shall bear the lovely prize away — = 

Bright crown of his endeavors — 
The fairest maiden in all England living. 

XVI. 

There's not in Christendom a better knight or braver 

Than Ethelred de Yere ; 
His youthful form is strong with manly grace, 
And in each feature of his handsome face, 

You see the soul sincere 
That dwelleth in his knightly bosom ever. 

XVII. 

He yet is only in his manhood's morning 
But knights whose locks are snowy 
Might envy l\im the fame that he h.as vfon 



14 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

By many a deed of daring emprizc done, 

And for the deeds less showy 
The knightly courtesies his name adorning. 

XVIII. 

Although he loves, as is a good knight's duty, 

The clang and din of war. 
His soul is more in unison with Peace 
And her attendant train of happiness, 

And loveth better far 
The songs of troubadors and smiles of Beauty. 

XIX. 

In youth, in noble blood, in knightly 'havior, 

Equals him Walter Neville ; 
He seemeth small in frame and slight of limb, 
But the sinews of a giant sleep in him ; 

And there 's a lurkino: devil 
In his heart, glaring from his eyes forever, 

XX. 

Although for dames and lords his looks are smiling, 

'Tis but his lips smile only ; 
Above his mouth a smile doth never rise, 
For that unfeeling spirit in his eyes 

Sitteth there dark and lonely, 
And never quits its glare so cold and chilling 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 15 

XXL 

Save when some cruel deed doth make it revel 

Another's hurt to witness. 
Were England searched from Lands-end to the Tweed, 
To find a man for any cruel deed 

Possessing natural fitness, 

'Twere hard to find a fitter man then Neville, 
-jf ^^ ^^ ^ ^ ^ 

XXII. 

Gray-hooded Twilight came a tip-toe creeping 

And woke the Dawn, who, blushing, 
Unto the orient chambers softly hied, 
And with her dewy fingers drew aside 

The clouds, resplendent flushing, 
Where curtained round with gold the Sun lay sleeping. 

XXIII, 

How glorious looked the Earth when climbing slowly 

Above the eastern mountain, 
The Sun threw off his cloudy mantle, and 
Spread golden light o'er glebe and forest land, 

Gilded each sparkling fountain 
And tipped the quivering leaves with rays of glory I 

XXIV. 

'Twas fair to see how Beauty sprang to being 

Born of his breeding splendor ; 
How hill and valley, wood and meadow green. 



16 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Clear singing brooks, whose waters ran between 

Banks fragrant with the tender 
Perfume of violets — fair things with fair agreeing — 

XXV. 

Came slowly from the ebon womb of Night. 

'Tis a sweet thing to roam 
O'er GocVs fair earth when first the morn doth break, 
And see how into life and being wake 

Beautiful things that come 
And fill the spirit with intense delight. 

XXVI. 

Green meadows dotted v/ith white lambs, whose gam- 
bols 
'Gin as they quit their pillows ; 
And herds of kine, some lying lazily 
Chewing the cud beneath the green-armed tree. 

Some lowing seek the willows 
Where over slippery stones the brooklet scrambles I 

XXVII. 

On sunny hill sides 'neath the hedge-rovf's shadow, 

Unnumbered wild flowers bloom ; 
Some hid by mx03sy stones beside the brook, 
Where e'en the prying bees dream not to look, 

But careless by them hum 
To rob the bolder beauties of the meadow. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 17 

XXVIII. 

Their glowing petals paint the green dominion 

With all the rainbow's glory : 
Sweet chemists they who nightly gather up 
A store of dew in every velvet cup, 

And in their laboratory 
Distill a perfume for the zephyr's pinion. 

XXIX. 

Flitting from bush to bush gay chirps the sparrow, 

His little love song pouring ; 
The green-plumed linnet in the hedge-row sings ; 
The sunlight flashing from his rapid wings 

Up wheels the sky-lark, soaring 
Above the clouds to bid the sun good-morrow. 

XXX. 

Close by the nest whereon his tired mate broods 

The black bird whistles checrly ; 
And from the topmost bough of some tall tree. 
The throstle sings his morning melody 

That through the still air clearly 
Falls like a shower of music o'er the woods. 



As bright a morn as e'er tipped vale and mountain 

With its resplendent flushing 
Dawned on the world, when forth from Godwin's gate 



X3 THE LAD YE LILLIAN. 

Walked young Sir Etlielred, liis heart elate 

Witli youthful Mood out-gushing 
From all its throbbing valves as from a fountain. 

xxxir. 
His soul drank in a draught of pleasure, driven 

Through every sense's portal ; 
Beauty that filled his eye, music his ear. 
Odors the south wind scattered everywhere— 

Ah ! were but youth immortal 
And spring eternal, who would sigh for Heaven? 

XXXIII. 

He gazed awhile upon the far horizon, 
Where pale gray clouds were turning 

From gray to crimson, crimson into gold ; 

Cloud after cloud like flags of flame unrolled, 
Till all the east seemed burning. 

And in the midst the monarch sun uprising. 

XXXIV. 

And as he marked the beauty round him glowing, 

And felt within him bounding 
A cheerful sense of health in every vein. 
Sweet thoughts made pleasant music in his brain, 

Whose notes mysterious sounding, 
Unconsciously in murmurs from his lips kept flowing. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 19 

XXXV. 

There is a range of rugged rocks, high towering, 
From whose brow downward gazing, 

The brain swims round, the heart feels faint as death,- 

So fearful is the depth that yawns beneath ; 
Black rocks their jagged points raising 

Or split in dreadful chasms dark and lowering 

XXXVI. 

Line all the side for many a fathom down : 

And here and there between them, 
A gnarled and stunted tree hath burst ; its roots 
Over the granite spread in knotty shoots 

That find no earth to screen them 
From summer's scorching smile, or winter^s freezing 
frown. 

xxxvir. 
Connected with this cliff there is a story — 

A tale with sadness laden : 
A youthful brother of the cloister nigh, 
Had learned to look with a too loving eye 

Upon a gentle maiden 
Who daily came^o pray within the Abbey hoary. 

XXXVIII. 

When first he saW her to the Virgin kneeling, 

So beautiful and holy, 
And heard the tremulous music of her prayer 



20 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Floating like incense througli tlie perfumed air 

That filled tlie cliancel wholly 
His soul was drunken with a rapturous feeling. 

XXXIX. 

He thought what pleasure would to him be given 
"When death his chains should sever, 

And he by fasting, prayer, and penance done 

Through life's hard pilgrimage, the right had won 
Forever and forever 

To mingle with sweet souls like her in Heaven ; 

XL. 

But gradually, like night, came stealing o'er him 

Thoughts of far other fashion ; 
A longing for the lost, forbidden bliss 
Of mortal love, th' embrace, and nectared kiss 

Of mutual human passion — 
Pleasures his vows could never more restore him. 

XLI. 

For months he struggled 'gainst his sore temptation, 
And strove by prayer and fasting ' 

To banish from his lieart the thoughts that came 

Like busy fiends, to set his soul aflame, 
Daily and hourly wasting 

His life away vvdth ceaseless agitation. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 21 

XLII. 

In vain, in vain — tliougli in liis cell secluded, 

Viewless they came around him, 
Mixed with his prayers, his fasts, his vigils dim ; . 
He could not conquer them — they should not him, - 

Though in their snare they 'd wound him ; 
He could but die, and o'er that thought he brooded . 

XLHI. 

One gloomy night, a night in tempest clouded. 

He left the cloister, flying : 
A bitter moan wailed through the shuddering storm : 
Next day some peasants found a mangled, form 

Upon the red rocks lying. 
In a monk's torn and bloody cloak enshrouded. 

XLIV. 

Upon the steep brow of that promontory, 

Sir Ethelred sat dreaming. 
All sense of outward things gone from him quite ; 
His eye saw not the ruddy morning's light 

Around him brightly beaming, 
Nor marked the foam crest of the billows hoary, 

XLV. 

Leaping and dancing on the distant ocean. 

Fast shut his sense of hearing, 
The music of the wild-bird's mornuig hymn. 



22 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Sweet sounds of Avaters, all were lost to liim ; 

An eagle screamed, careering 
Close o'er his head nor woke in him emotion. 

XLVI. 

For he of Ladye Lillian was dreaming, 

"Weaving a thousand fancies, 
Fair pictures of the future, witli her face 
The foremost figure in them, whose sweet grace 

A thousand fold enhances 
The beauty of the visions on him beaming. 

XLVIL 

Whilst there he sits. Sir Walter, too, is slowly 
The same bright pathway treading ; 

His head down-bent, his eyes upon the ground, 

He sees but cares not for the beauty round, 
It hath no power of shedding 

O'er his dark soul one ray of feeling holy. 

XLVIII. 

He sees the towering woods, and smiling valleys, 
The flocks spread o'er the meadow. 

The lordly castle near, and, far away, 

The little hamlet that securely lay 
Asleep in the wood's shadow ; 

No thouEcht thev stirred in liini save envious malice. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 23 

XLIX. 

He coveted the wide-spread, fertile manor, 

And thought of Godwin's daughter ; 
Not of her beauty, nor her gentle spirit, 
But the rich realm she would one day inherit : 

For these it was he sought her. 
And wooed her with a lover's tongue and mannei . 

L. 

Then in his soul arose thoughts most unholy, 

Offering sweet poison to him ; 
He thought that were Sir E their ed but gone, 
How easily might Lillian be won 

To listen to his wooing 
When he was left unchecked to woo her solely. 

LI. 

He pondered o'er this thought till every minute 

Against his knightly brother 
Grew hatred like a fester at his heart. 
Inflaming what it fed on, till the smart 

All other feelings smother, 
And he resolved at every cost to win it. 

LII. 

To a deep dell with world old trees o'ershaded, 

The path he treads arriveth ; 
A solemn gloom broods like perpetual night 



24 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Over the place ; in vain tlie pleasant light 

Throiigli the thick branches striveth 
To find the poor flowers, hucless, dull, and faded, 

LIII. 

That sicken in the darkness ; sunshine never 

The sod beneath them brightened ; 
Long mosses, gray with ago, hang drooping down 
From gnarled lim])s by breezes never blown. 

For zephyrs shrink back frightened 
Nor try to enter through its portals ever. 

LIV. 

Dread silence reigns unbroke save by the creaking 

Of palsied sprites, oak-prisoned ; 
Or echoes that like troubled ghosts unseen 
Go wailing, moaning, the dark trunks between, 

Paining the ear that listened ; 
Or cry of some lost bird that through the dell flici 
shrieking. 

LV. 

Through this lone pathway walks Sir Walter slowly, 

His heart o'er dark deeds poring. 
When lo ! there in the gloomiest of the shade, 
Where hugest boughs the deepest darkness made, 

A shape rose up before him. 
So bright, he thought it was an angel holy. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 25 

LVL 

A pale blue flame, that in tlic gloom looked aurent, 

Aromid her form was playing ; 
Two shadowy wings of greenish gold that sprung 
From her white shoulders, closed and folded hung 

Behind her ; Avhilst, betraying 
The charms it seemed to hide, a robe transparent 

LVII. 

Flowed round her dazzling shape and limbs ; her milky 

Arms, soft white neck and bosom 
Were bare and robeless, and her feet unshod^ 
Made silvery light upon the mossy sod. 

Which softly to repose them 
Turned up its leaves that were most smooth and silky. 

LVIII. 

Her black hair, parted on her low broad forehead, 

Fell thick around her shoulders 
Like raven's plumes on snow ; eyes, like her hair 
Intensely black, that sometimes seemed to glare 

Askant at the beholder, 
And filled him with a nameless dread, a feeling horrid. 

LIX. 

Such was the shape that filled him with strange terror; 

He turned as if for fleeing, 
He thought her keen black glances seemed to dart 



26 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Like lightnings through him, laying bare his heart, 

And all its vile thoughts seeing ; 
For which she came to doom him to some fate of horror, 

LX. 

But something in her face that made him bolder, 

A second glance betrayed ; 
He looked, and to his eyes she seemed to grow 
Each minute yet more beautiful ; and so, 

No longer made afraid, 
He paused awhile admiring to behold her. 

LXI. 

Then spoke she to him, and her voice went flowing 

In dreamy cadence round him ; 
A mystic magic from its music breathed 
Which all unseen a web around him wreathed 

That firm and strongly bound him, nn 
Without a farther thought or wish of going. 

LXII. 

" Seat thee upon yon mossy knoll, Sir Walter, 

For we must talk together : 
The thoughts thou^st pondered o'er this morn I know. 
Nay, fear not ! what I a knight, and tremble so ? 

I come to aid thee rather 
Than seeking thy resolve to check or alter. 



% 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 27 

LXIII. 

" Thou would'st be master of Earl Godwin's power, 

But fearest thou can'st not win it : 
In sooth it is a realm a king might covet ; 
Therefore I marvel not that thou dost love it. 

I trow it holdeth in it 
More fruitful land, more wealth of town and tower 

Lxrv. 
" Than any other in wide England's border : 

And Lillian is a maiden 
For one love glance of whose angelic eyes 
Gods might contend, as for a worthy prize. 

Thy heart is not o'erladen 
With what weak fools call love ; tiiou dost regard her 

LXV. 

" But as the means to win the prize for which thou'rt 
yearning. 

Sir E their ed must leave her I 
She does not love him yet, but round her heart 
A thousand gentle thoughts of him disport, 

And ere they fix forever 
He must begone with no hope of returning." 

LXVI. 

" No need to tell me this," he then exclaimed ; 

" For I have pondered o'er it 
For many and many an hour by night and day 



28 THE LAD YE LILLIAN. 

Till my brain aclied, and yet could find no way 

By which I might secure it." 
" Tut !" cried she, with a smile so cold it seemed 

LXVII. 

More like a sneer ; " and hast thou not yet learned 

That a strong will can conquer 
All mortal obstacles, whatever they be ? 
Act ! and these seeming hindrances will flee 

And trouble thee no longer. 
A deedless thought no good yet ever earned. 

LXVIII. 

" Resolve somewhat to do, and then begin it : 

I'll aid thee in th' endeavor. 
To win the earldom Lillian must be won, 
And to win her thy rival must be gone — 

Gone soon, and gone forever. 
Now take this mirror, say what seest thou in it ?" 

LXIX. 

" I see a white mist slowly upward curling ; 

Now figures forming in it ; 
I see the Monk's Cliff, and Sir Ethelred 
Seated upon its brow where I should dread 

To sit for but one minute. 
0, would some chance but send him downward hurling!" 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 29 

LXX. 

" Look yet again ! this mirror to tliec leudoth 

Not outer figures only, 
But winged thoughts that viewless come and go 
From human hearts continually ; for, know, 

No soul so desolate is and lonely 
But thousands of these sprites on it attendeth. 

LXXI. 

" See ! to Sir Ethelred how thickly they are flying, 

With treasure all o'er laden ; 
Some bring him songs more sweet than mortal ear 
E'er listened to, and others to him bear 

Fair pictures of the maiden 
For whose dear love his secret soul is si^rhino-. 

LXXII. 

And others paint the future brightly for him, 

With Lillian ever in it — 
His bride, fair Lillian. With thee it rests 
If he with such a future shall be blest, 

For he will surely win it 
Unless thou'rt brave enough to mar it for him. 

LXXIII. 

" Thou seest so charmed he is with what they bring him 

No other thing he heedeth ; 

How easy were it then for thee to creep, 
2* 



30 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

With stealthy steps, up to that rocky steep, 

(This path up to it leadeth) 
And headlong down the craggy deep to fling him I 

LXXIV. 

" No eye looks on, no other soul is near thee ; 

And who'll say thou did'st slay him ? 
When he is found a shapeless mass below, 
All will suppose — ^for none the truth can know — 

His footsteps did betray him. 
Go ! then, there's nought to harm or fear thee." 

LXXV. 

" I'll do it," cried he, " I'll not stop nor falter 

Till he is past all praying, 
If human arms will second human wrath." 
But as he turned to tread the upward path 

He heard a low voice saying 
" What wicked thing is this you do. Sir Walter?" 

LXXVI. 

Amazed he turned to see whence it proceeded, 

And trembled as before him 
He saw another shape, that, calm and slow 
Came through the woods. At once a fearful flow 

Of shuddering chills ran o'er him. 
And terror-sweat upon his brow hung beaded. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 31 

LXXVII. 

Strange radiance round tins new-come shape was 
glowing — 

A bright yet softened brightness 
That filled the eye with lustre, and that made 
A sunny halo in the forest shade. 

A robe of snowy whiteness 
In heavy folds around her form was flowing. 

LXXVIII. 

Gently she came and stood beside the other, 

And then Sir Walter trembled 
To see how much unlike they were, yet still 
In each was something indescribable 

The other that resembled — 
And so like him, he might have been their brother. 

LXXIX. 

Maluna's face flushed crimson red, then paled 

As lonah drew nigh her ; 
She strove to daunt her with her frown, but there 
Was something in lonah's gentle air 

Superior to her ire, 
'Neath which her haughty eyelids drooped and quailed. 

LXXX. 

" What dreadful deed is this you plot between you? 

And who says none will know it ? 
Bethink you, Walter ! what though no man^s eye 



32 THE LADYE LILLIAN, 

Except your own looks on, there is One nighy 

And better ^twere to show it 
To all the world than to that dread Unseen One. 

LXXXJ. 

" Back I ere the fiend that tempts you wins you farV .^r ! 

Enough of crime already ' 
Blackens the page that bears your namil in heaven^ — 
Crimes unrepented of and unforgiven : 

Oh ! be not, then, so ready 
To add to that black list the crime of murder." 

LXXXII. 

"List," cried Maluna, " to this 'pale-faced baby! 

Will you be checked or thwarted 
From a bold deed that wins you power and rank, 
By foolish fables coined by lying monks 

To fright the tim'rous hearted ? 
I'd scorn thy knighthood if such fears could sway thee I 

LXXXIII. 

*' By Holy Rood it almost moved my laughter 

To hear her monkish prattle. 
Heaven's book, forsooth ! and that dread Unseen Eye ! 
Who is it that believes the foolish lie ? 

Boors, and such senseless cattle." 
Sir Walter faintly said, " There is a Hei^eafter." 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. Z^ 

LXXXIV. 

" What if there is ? what if both Hell and Heaven ? 

Even by their lying story 
The wealth that you by this one deed would win 
Would ransom fifty souls from blacker sin 

Out of their purgatory, 
And send them scarcely scorched, above, forgiven." 

LXXXV. 

" Oh ! listen not," lonah cried beseeching, 

" To language so unholy ! 
Alas I I fear her wiles are all too strong : 
You've listened to her syren voice so long 

That now she rules you wholly. 
And sways you ever by her wicked teaching. 

LXXXVI. 

" What can I say that will have power to turn you ? 

Think whose life's thread you'd sever ! 
Your frere in arms — your brother tried and true : 
Hath he by word or deed e'er injured you ? 

Never ! Sir Walter Neville, never I 
Oh! were this known the whole wide world would 
spurn you. 

LXXXVII. 

" Remember how when you unhorsed were lying 

Upon the field of Cressy, 
With Rougemont's deadly lance against your breast. 



34 THE LADYE LILLIAN, 

You saw the waving of his gallant crest, 
As through the throng and press he 
Hewed out a pathway, strewed with dead and dying. 

LXXXVIII. 

" And rescued you from your severest danger ; 

Alone, alone he did it. 
And will you pay him for the life he gave 
By sending him to such a timeless grave ? 

Ev'n though this siren bid it, 
You cannot be to knighthood such a stranger." 

LXXXIX. 

The while the gentle lonah was speaking 

Maluna's face grew flushed ; 
Fierce glances did her flashing eyes emit, 
Whilst angrily her compressed lips she bit, 

And passionately crushed 
The mosses ^neath her feet. Her anger breaking 

xc. 
At length in words, she turned to dark Sir Walter ; 

Whose looks had strangely varied, 
Shame, fear, contempt, hate, anger and surprise 
By turns usurping empire of his eyes, 

And through them all unwearied 
That keen, cold, devil-look that nought could alter. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 35 

XCI. 

" Aye," cried slic, " though by chance from Cressy's 
harm he 

Did rescue you, you owe him 
Small thanks for that ; 'twere better to have died . 
Than live to see him ranked by Edward's side, 

And minstrels vie to show him 
The bravest knight in all that noble army. 

XCII. 

" Who from the first hath ever lorded o'er you 

Sir Ethelred forever — 
E'en from the time when you, two pages small, 
Began in Simon Beaufort's lordly hall 

Your lives' career together, 
He has been prized, and ranked, and loved before you. 

XCIII. 

" Who when of Europe's chivalry the flower 

In tournament contended — 
When kingly eyes looked on the knightly fray, 
And queenly fingers gave the prize away — 

Who was it then that rended 
From out your grasp the victor's glorious dower ? 

XCIV. 

■' And, more than all, who is it now that stands 

'Tween you and your desires ? 
For shame ! those pallid lips, and cheeks so white, 



36 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Better become a craven than a knight 

Whose vaulting soul aspires 
To be the ruler of Earl Godwin^s lands. 

xcv. 
" If yet more motive you must have to spur you 

To win the prize you covet, 
'Tis there ! look boldly on it, Walter, there ! 
The golden round of England's royal care I 

So bright a saint might love it. 
A kingly guerdon waiting, Neville, for you, 

xcvi. 
" For you may win it. No height is so towering 

Above the resolute spirit 
That it may not attain it if it will : 
No ! upward through each cloudy obstacle 

Its strong plumed pinions bear it. 
Until it wins the goal that urged its soaring. 

XCVII. 

" Master of Godwin's rank, and Godwin's power, 

And an untrammeled spirit, 
To win that higher and more glorious seat. 
It were a task for one that dared be great 

As easy as to dare it. 
Up ! then, and seize the favorable hour." 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 37 

XCVIII. 

How bright she grew to his distempered vision 

As thus she spake unto him I 
Circles of golden light about her shone, 
And from the midst her voice's ravishing tone 

Lulled him, and seemed to woo him 
To the possession of a bliss Elysian. 

xcix. 
Off from his face swept every tender feeling, 

Whilst the old look grew stronger ; 
And turning to the mountain path he cried 
" Let good or ill the effort now betide 

I will delay no longer. 
Pray well, Sir Ethelred, your knell is pealing." 

c. 

Sadly lonah pressed her. hands before her, 

And bowed her fair head, weeping ; 
Her white-plumed pinions trailing weak and low 
Amongst the fallen leaves, she turned to go, 

With faltering footsteps creeping 
Beneath the gloomy boughs that muttered o'er her. 

CI. 

Dimmer, and dimmer grew her angel figure, 

And fainter, fainter sighing. 
Her voice came sadly on the tremulous air : 



38 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

" Do not this wicked deed ! Come back ! Beware !" 

But he all good defying 

Strode up the pathway with new-wakened vigor. 
^ * ^- * ^- « * 

CII. 

With hurried strides, as one from demons flying, 
Sir Walter soon returneth ; 
His face all white, his pallid lips compressed, 
His heart throbs audibly against his breast ; 

And Oh ! the fire that burneth 
In his red eyes is lit by Remorse undying. 

cm. 
Whose ghostly feet are those he hears so plainly 

Tramp, tramping close behind him ? 
And whose the panting breath so hotly fetched, 
The bodiless arm, and bony hand out-stretched, 

Ready to seize and bind him ? 
They are the dead's he murdered, ah ! so vainly : 

CIV. 

For had he known how little of his victim 

He had the power to vanquish. 
He had not periled his immortal soul 
To have the huge round world at his control, 

If he must bear the anguish 
With which this phantom has tlie power t' inflict liii ' » 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 3" 

CV. 

Oil ! liow lie pants and longs to look behind him, 

But look behind he dares not : 
If it Tvere flesh and blood pursued him so, 
He would assail it, giving blow for blow, 

Bid it lay on and spare not : 
But that pale ghost ! one glance at it would blind him. 

cvi. 
He came where stood the shape that did delude him f 

But she stood there no longer ; 
An undefined hope had nerved his soul 
Through his wild flight, that when he reached that goal 

His courage would grow stronger, 
And he should dare to face this that pursued him. 

CVII. 

But she was gone. The forest dark and dreary, 

Stood all in gloom before him ; 
How can he dare to rush into its shade, 
Breaking its silence with his guilty tread ? 

He must ; that hand stretched o'er him 
Will not allow him in his flight to tarry. 

cvni. 
So on he flew. Oh ! horror upon horror ! 

Before, around him flocking, 
There are ten thousand stony, lidless eyes 



40 THi LADYE LILLIAN. 

Filled with strange knowledge, glaring as he flies, 

And grinning mouths that mocking 
Cry " murderer !" in whispers hoarse as terror. 

cix. 
Up from the moss his footsteps press in flying, 

Tliey glare and grin upon him : 
From every rugged trunk, and twisted bough 
They stare by thousands, till he knows not how 

His steps to turn to shun them, 
So thickly in his pathway are they lying. 

ex. 
Oh ! for a flash of lightning, swift, unerring. 

To blast those hideous glances ! 
He clasps his eyelids o'er his burning eyes 
To keep them out, but all in vain he tries ; 

The darkness but enhances 
The number of those spectres grinning, glaring. 

CXI. 

He fancies on his neck a hot breath blowing ; 

A hand upon his shoulder ; 
Ah I 'twas too much, his o'ertasked strength gave way, 
And prone upon the dark cold sod he lay, 

Cold as the dead, or colder — 
Like him as stiff, as senseless, as unknowing. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 41 

CXII. 

Like one half waked to whom the truth of living 

Comes dim and dream-like only, 
He stood, when once more throbbed his pulses free ; • 
One moment, too, unconscious wherefore he 

Stood there so still and lonely. 
'Twas but a moment : memory reviving 

CXIII. 

Brought back the past with all its crime and horror. 

Trembling he stood a minute, 
(The cold sweat oozing from Ms clammy brow) 
And glared upon each rugged trunk and bough, 

Fearing to yet see in it 
Those eyes and mouths that filled him with such terror. 

CXIV. 

Thank God ! they are not there ; but yet unknowing 

How soon they'll come again. 
He started forward swift as erst he flew, 
A few wide strides, and, that dark wood passed through. 

He reached the open plain 
And felt the cheerful sunlight on him glowing. 

cxv. 
Ah ! ne'er before had light seemed half so blessed 

As now to him it seemed ; 
Never a breeze so blest as that wliicli now 



42 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Laid its cool fingers on liis throbbing brow ; 

No grass so greenly gleamed 
As that which now his flying footsteps pressed. 

cxvi. 
Ho crossed the mead, to right or left not turning, 

For ever yet he deemed that 
His late pursuer would the chase renew. 
He reached the hollow where the willows threw 

A cool shade on the streamlet. 
And stooped to drink, for his throat was parched and 
burning. 

CXVII. 

Was that his face uplooking from the water, 

So haggard and distorted ? 
And, God of Mercy ! what is't bends with hira, 
Stooping its blue lips to the runnel's brim ? 

Will not this thing be thwarted ? 
Will it pursue evermore its slaughterer ? 

CXVIII. 

He springs to fly ; but braver thoughts returning 

Do nerve his heart to boldness, 
And so he looks into the deep below, 
Resolved at once the worst of truth to know ; 

For death's eternal coldness 
Were better than this constant fear and yearning. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 43 

CXIX. 

He forces his reluctant glances slowly- 
Down on the watery mirror ; 

Ah I blest relief, there is no shadow there 

Except his own ; but it has such an air, 
So seamed and wanned by terror — 

A terror made by coward conscience only ! 

cxx. 
Hurriedly then his haggard brow he dashes 

With the refreshing water. 
To wipe away all traces that might tell 
To prying eyes the dark and damning tale 

Of E their ed's foul slaughter : 
Would it were Lethe's stream wherein he washes I 

cxxi. 
That day wore by, and like a curtain slowly 

Night drew her mantle, starry, 
Across the skies, blotting out daylight all, 
Yet Ethelred came not to Godwin's hall ; 

'Twas strange where he could tarry 
From early dawn till day had vanished wholly. 

CXXII. 

All night they kept the beacon fires a-burning, 

If, haply, he, belated. 
Or lost amidst the windings of the wood, 



44 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

In self same paths an endless round pursued. 

But Morn again was seated 
Upon the hills, yet saw him not returning. 

CXXIII. 

'Twas nearly noontide of the second morrow, 
When through the park gate slowly, 

Four peasants on a green bough litter bore 

A form with blood and bruizes mangled o'er : 
Ah ! sight of melancholy ! 

'Twas poor Sir Ethelred for whom they sorrow ! 

cxxiv. 
A little while and starkly he is laying 

Within the Oratory : 
His bloody wounds washed clean by gentle hands ; 
His tangled hair combed out in seemly bands ; 

His hands, no longer gory, 
Clasped crosswise on his breast as he were praying. 

cxxv. 
Beside the bier stood Lillian, pressing tightly 

Her claspdd hands before her ; 
Her pale lips trembling with suppressed sighs, 
A world of sorroAY in her brimful eyes ; 

For suddenly came o'er her 
The knowledG:e that she had not loved him lio-]itlv. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 45 

CXXVI. 

Tlic good Earl Godwin stood by Lillian's side, 

G azing upon the dead 5 
His silvery head bowed o'er tlie heavy bier, 
His kind old eyes bedimmcd with many a tear, 

The first that he had shed 
Of sorrow since dear Lillian's mother died. 

CXXVII. 

On th' other side stood Walter, his grief seeming 

More bitter than the other's ; 
The false tears rolling down his falser check — 
His voice so cracked with sobs he scarce could speak : 

" My brother ! Oh ! my brother ! 
What angry star in tlie red sky was gleaming 

CXXVIII. 

" When thou went'st hence that luckless, luckless morn- 
ing? 
Well may I mourn sincerely, 
"hou fairest mirror of true chivalry ; 
Thou wert the first and dearest friend to me. 

One that e'er loved me dearly ; 
Witness for this how every peril scorning 

CXXIX. 

" Thou rescued'st me when I was helpless lying, 

And gavest me life and gladness. 

If thouhad'st died as good knights love to die, 
3 



46 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

In the bright flush of ruddy victory, 

Some portion of our sadness 
Were lost in memory of thy glorious dying : 

cxxx. 
"But thus to perish in thy morn of glory 

Maketli our grief more bitter. 
Would, Oh my brother ! I instead of thee 
Were lying here." Thus falsely saying, he 

Came closer to the litter, 
And took in his the hand no longer gory. 

cxxxi. 
Scarce had he touched the corpse when back he stag- 
gered, . 
His hair on end uprearing. 
His cheeks and lips a bloodless, ashy white, 
His eyeballs terror rounded with affright 

At the mute body glaring. 
Did the dead strike him that he looks so haggard ? 

CXXXII. 

No ! worse than that. See ! how the red blood rushes 

In an impetuous torrent 
From out the pale lips of each clay cold wound I 
Ah I sight might well his guilty heart confound I 

He knows that turbid current 
Was set a-flowing by his murderous touch. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 47 

CXXXIII. 

He looked to sec the corpse arise and speak : yet 

Lingered tliat scared expression 
A moment only on his face, for then 
The thought gleamed on his mind that he must feign' 

A widely dilFerent passion 
Ere those that saw should guess his guilty secret. 

cxxxiv. 
" He liyes !" he cried. " See how the blood is flowing 

From out his cruel gashes I 
The dead bleed not — ^he bleeds and lives, therefore — 
Where is the Leech ? his art may yet restore 

Him back to us.'' Thus saying, 
He went, upon a bootless errand going. 

cxxxv. 
The Earl and Lillian were so dulled by grief 

They scarcely noted Walter : 
But cheated by the hope he yet was living, 
Each bent above the body, vainly striving 

The bitter truth to alter. 
By every art they deemed might give relief. 

cxxxvi. 
Engaged in this lost labor Walter found them 

When with the Leech returning : 
Then he, too, feigned to help, but took good care 



48 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

His liand touclied not the body or the bier, 

Lest it, his touches spurning, 
Again should ope its gashes to confound him. 

CXXXVII. 

With all the rites to Christian knights pertaining, 

Next day the mourners bore him, 
And in the Abbey's chancel, where the light 
Through stained windows rested warm and bright 

Upon the cold stone o'er him, 
They buried him, even as the day was waning. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

PART II. 

I, 

Like troubled spirits doomed fore'er to linger 

In desolation's shadow, 
November's winds go moaning here and there, 
Scattering the yellow leaves that dead and sere 

Lie on the purple meadow ; 
Or plucking with their bony, skeleton finger 

IL 

The few that yet to shriveled boughs arc clinging. 

List to their changeful voices ! 
One moment shrieking angrily, again 
Muttering like ghosts, or moaning as in pain ; 

Anon you hear the noises 
As of an army through the bleak air ringing. 

III. 
They are all gone, all pleasant. sights and voices 

That once the green earth gladdened ; 
No hum of insects in the cold blue air ; 
3 



50 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

No bleat of lambs upon the meadows bare ; 

The river's song is saddened, 
Drowned by November's dreary, dreary noises. 



It is no time for all those pleasant fancies 
The cheerful spring time bringeth ; 

On everything beneath the leaden sky 

A weary weight of sadness seems to lie, 
Tliat like a dark cloud flingeth 

A shadow over all life's dear romances. 

V. 

Now like a sorrowing wife the Earth sits sighing 

Within her desolate chamber, 
(Her many-colored garments all cast by,) 
Watching with pallid cheek and tearful eye 

The pale, uneasy slumber 
Of the Old Year, who lies before her dying. 



Yes, he must die ! To shrive him of his sin, 

Across the breezy heath 
There comes a wan old Friar with footsteps slow, 
His cloak and hood all white with new-fallen snow, 

His weak, asthmatic breath 
Frozen upon his scanty-bearded chin. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 51 

VII. 

Merrily, merrily from the Abbey's tower 

The pleasant bells are pealing 
A marriage chime. Look ! one might almost swear. 
That he could see up in the thin blue air 

Melodious circles wheeling, 
Softening its bleakness by their magic power. 

VIII. 

From Godwin's gate a cheerful train is going, 

Their gayest robes arrayed in ; 
Rosy-lipped ladies clad in snowy dresses, 
With orange blossoms shining in their tresses. 

And scores of village maidens 
Garlands of evergreen before them strewing. 

IX. 

The knights' fierce chargers curb their martial prancing 

To suit the gentle paces 
Of ladies' palfries. Sweet it is to hear 
The silvery voices and the laughter clear ; 

To see the snowy laces 
And plumes like banners in the sunlight dancing. 

X. 

'Tis Lillian's wedding morn. This merry crowd 

Is to the Abbey going 
Where she to Walter Neville will be wed ; 



52 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Better it were lier funeral, and instead 
Of bride garb round lier flowing, 
That she were lying clad in sheet and shroud ! 



For 'tis but friendship that she feels for Neville, 
Although she thinks she loves him. 

Alas ! how will her gentle heart be wrung, 

When the deceptive veil aside is flung, 
And every act approves him 

The thing he is, a black, incarnate devil ! 

XII. 

Adown the slope shorn of its summer glory 

The gay procession wends, 
Their merry voices brightening all the way ; 
Now through the wood, now o'er the meadow gray, 

Now up the hill where stands 
Solemn and beautiful the Abbey hoary. 

XIII. 

It is a goodly pile, that Abbey hoary, 

Built by those pious masons 
Who roamed from land to land, and clime to clime, 
Themselves devoted to the task sublime, 

To rear in Christian nations 
Temples and shrines befitting Heaven's glory. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN, 53 

XIV. 

Due East and West its greatest length extended 

More tlian a hundred paces ; 
A solid mass of noble masonry, 
Adorned with sculptures quaint, yet rich to see, 

For every nook bore traces 
Of the unwearied toil on it expended. 

XV. • 

Each arched window deep embayed in stone 

"Was gorgeous and rich 
With stained pictures, drawn from Holy Writ, 
Or pious legend ; and each side of it. 

Deep hidden in his niche. 
There stood an old Apostle grim and lone. 

XVI. 

On either side the low, deep-sunken portal, 

Were good Saints Paul and Peter ; 
It had a gloomy look, that low, deep door, 
Its oaken panels, iron studded o'er. 

Seemed for a fortress meeter 
Than for a dwelling-place of the Immortal. 

XVII. 

But passing through the frowning gate, what brightness 

■ The gazer's sight rejoices ! 

High overhead the fluted columns tower, 
3* 



54 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Bearing the arched ceiling, covered o'er 

With wonderful devices ; 
Massive it is, yet seems of fairy lightness. 

XVIII. 

In the far distance stood the altar, glowing 

With gilded wreaths and scrolls, 
And golden candlesticks Avhose tapers shone 
Warmly upon the Cross, and He thereon 

Who once to save our souls 
Suffered to pay the debt that we were owing. 

XIX. 

There on one side sat gentle Mary Mother, 

Looking with glances tender 
Upon the kneeling suppliants who came 
With downcast eyes, and proud hearts meek and tame, 

Beseeching her to render 
That aid tliey dared not hope for from another. 

XX. 

And there were other saints in niches shrined : 

And marbles monumental 
Bearing the names of those who slept in death 
In the dim vaults the Abbey walls beneath : 

The aisles, the nave, the chancel. 
Were thus with names of the departed lined. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 55 

XXI. 

There was one monument where two were kneeling, 

A mailed knight and his lady — 
An open missal was before them laid ; 
Their heads were bowed, hands clasped as if they prayed. 

The quaint carved letters said he 
Had fought in Palestine. The sunlight stealing 

XXII. 

Through the stained windows, like the smile of God 

Played with a radiance mellow 
In golden circles 'round each bended head. 
And other monuments of other dead 

Wes-e there — some names did hallow 
The very flagstones that the footsteps trod. 



At any time a pious melancholy 

Came o'er the most unheeding 
Who entered here : the vast, dim roof overhead ; 
The dusty marbles of the dusty dead ; 

The dim aisles darkly leading 
To deeper darkness ; the eyes, sad, yet holy 

XXIV. 

Of gray old saints steadily at him gazing 

With a weird look of censure 
In their dead orbs ; the dusky light that stole 



56 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Ihrougli the dim windows, casting o^cr the whole 

A strange gray shadow, made intenser 
The reverential awe lipon him seizing. 

XXV. 

The very silence that abont it brooded 

Deepened this holy feeling ; 
So that unconsciously one strove to cloak 
The rumbling echoes that his footsteps woke 

In the aisles and arched ceiling, 
As something to the spirit of the place unsuited — 

XXVI. 

But more than all, when the sweet spirits dwelling 

In th' organ's pipes leaped out, 
And shook their golden plumes at liberty, 
Making the air tremulous with harmony — 

Now with a thunder shout 
Together in deep diapason swelling, 

XXVII. 

Shaking the comers of the massive building 

Till roof and pillars trembled — 
Now calling to each other dreamily 
From 'midst deep niches and quaint sculpturey — 

Again, in bands assembled, 
With a sea of liarmony the spirit thrilling — 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 57 

XXVIII. 

Then, then, if ever, hearts too seldom swelling 

With feelings of devotion. 
Forgot the hardness that long years had brought, 
And from the spirit of the building caught 

A rapt, devout emotion, 
Their knees to bow, their lips to pra}^ compelling. 

XXIX. 

Like rays of blessed sunshine brightness bringing 

Into that Holy Place 
A troop of smiling faces enter in ; 
Devoutly kneeling whilst the Priests begin 

The sacrifice of Mass : 
Kyrie Eleison, the cowled monks are singing. 

XXX. 

Kyrie Eleison ! Ah ! Christe Eleison ! 

From thy bright throne descending. 
Oh Thou ! whose first great miracle on earth 
Was wrought aforetime at a marriage ! now stretch forth 

Thy glorious arm, defending, 
Forbid them, Lord, from consummating this one ! 

XXXI. 

The pious labor was not ended wholly 

When terror seized Sir Walter ; 
For as he gazed upon the blessed sign 



58 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Of our Redemption, he saw rent in twain 

The wall beyond the altar, 
And through the cleft three figures enter slowly. 

XXXII. 

One was Maluna ; still about her glowing 

The same mysterious splendor ; 
The same weird beauty in her shape and face ; 
The same transparent robe its magic grace 

And witchery did lend her, 
As when he met her through the forest going. 

XXXIII. 

Another, pale lonah ; her meek glances 

Appealingly fixed on him ; 
But wan and weak she seemed ; and at her side, 
(Her arm supporting his unsteady stride) 

Came E their ed ; upon him 
The gashes that his ghostly look enhances. 

XXXIV. 

There was no life in his poor wounded figure ; 

In his pale face no color ; 
No light in his dim eyes, and yet it seemed 
To Walter Neville that a knowledge gleamed 

Intenser, deeper, fuller, 
From those fixed orbs than in life's noblest vigor. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 59 

XXXV. 

"Whilst yet he gazed upon them, pale and trembling, 

lonah to him speaking 
Cried : " Stop I Sir Walter, ere it is too late 
To stem the current of that heavy fate, 

Whose billows o'er you breaking 
Shall dash you piecemeal with a force o'erwhelming. 

xxxvi. 
" Stop ! ere your hand hath grasped the tempting guer- 
don 
For which your soul was periled : 
Break, flinty heart ! bow ! bow ! stubborn knees ! 
Confess with penitential agonies 

The crime you have committed : 
God's mercy yet may grant to you a pardon !'' 

xxxvii. 
*' Do !" sneered Maluna ; " Do ! 't will be so pleasant 

To kneel to some poor friar, 
And tell him how, assassin-like, you slew 
Your knightly brother ; 't will be pleasant, too, 

The penance he'll require 
•To expiate your sin, for next world and the present. 

XXXVIII. 

" Ha ! 'twill be brave to doff your knight's apparel, 

And put on cowl and hood, 
And buried in a monasterv's ^-loom— 



60 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

A living corpse within a living tomb — 
With stripes, and tears, and blood, 
Seeking to win your soul from its great peril. 

XXXIX. 

"Out on this baby weakness ! Will you falter 

In your career of glory ? 
But one step more and Lillian is yours ; 
That step to you an Earl's proud rank assures : 

How plain then runs the story — 
Earl Walter— Rebel Walter— then King Walter I" 

XL. 

" Why are you here ?" he gasped, " why do you haunt me 

At such a holy time ? 
Begone ! and take liim hence ! I would go on 
Though Hell and all its hosts cried ' stop/ Begone I 

I am so deep in crime 
That nothing now from my career can daunt me. 

XLI. 

" Begone !" he cried : and this one word loud spoken 

Was heard by all around him : 
They'd seen how from his cheeks all hue had fled ; 
How his limbs quaked, and knew some unknown dread, 

Some great fear did confound him ; 
But what, they could not guess ])y any token. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. Gl 

XLII. 

Wondering tliey asked, "What ailcth you, Sir Walter?" 

" What ! see you not," exclaimed he, 
" The figures I see plainly standing there I 
Sure you know 1dm, Sir Ethelred De Yere ! 

Look, where all gashed and maimed, he 
Stands 'tween two angels there beyond the altar I" 

XLHI. 

" Tush ! tush ! 'tis foolish fancy doth o'ercome thee." 

" I see them there too plainly — 
'Tis no delusion — there ! with gashes on his brow 
He stands ! Great God ! they're bleeding freshly now I 

Must I speak to you vainly I 
Begone ! and take that hateful figure from me !" 

XLIV. 

Even then they vanished ; but not so departed 

From all the look amazing : 
Pale, breathless stood fair Lillian like one 
By some enchantment sudden turned to stone : 

Upon Sir Walter gazing 
With big round eyes, and pallid lips half-parted. 

XLV. 

And then her hand across her fair brow; sweeping, 

Like one from sleep awaking : 
A troubled look, half terror, half surprise, 



62 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Within tlie dark depths of her lovely eyes 

A tremulous lustre making ; 
Their lids surcharged with tears as she were weeping. 

XLVI. 

A moment, and a wondrous change came o'er her ! 

Her spirit's workings throwing 
Such brightness over eye, and brow, and tress, 
She seemed a young and lovely Pythoness 

With fire prophetic glowing : 
Startling the holy man that stood before her, 

XLVII. 

She cried, her voice with silver clearness pealing, 

" I will not wed Sir Walter ! 
There is a light gleams star-like on my brain. 
Making a sad, dark mystery clear and plain. 

And here, before God's altar, 
The doer of a bloody deed revealing. 

XLVIII. 

" Sir Ethelred was murdered by Sir Walter I' 

" Hush I" cried her good old father, 
" What busy devil tcmpteth thee, my child, 
And mads thy spirit with a dream so wild ?'^ 

" No devil, but an angel rather : 
Yes, fatlier, yes ! I cm\ not pause nor falter : 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 63 

XLIX. 

" There is a power above me that compels me 

To this miusual boldness ; 
I feel its mighty impulse in my soul — 
Lip, tongue, and voice are all at its control ; 

I have no fear, no coldness, 
I must speak, and must speak the words it tells me 1 

L, 

" I've heard of olden legends that declare 

How at the murderer's touches 
The corpse would shudder, as with life endued, 
And from the bloodless wounds the crimson blood 

Would start in fearful gushes ; 
Such horror had the victim of its slayer. 

LI. 

" And I remember now, when he was lying 

In death's cold silence hushed. 
How when Sir Walter touched his clay-cold hand. 
The pale wounds oped as touched by a wizard's wana. 

And fearfully out-rushed 
The blood, his guilty hands a crimson dyeing. 

LII. 

" Methinks I see again his start of terror : 

His cheeks guilt's livery wearing. 
But then it entered not my brain tliat Heaven 



64 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Unto the murdered form the power had given 

By witness so unerring 
To mark the doer of the deed of horror. 

LIII. 

" But noio this shade that comes from realms Elysian, 

Heaven-sent, here at the altar 
Points out a murderer, and reveals the crime. 
Why should it come at such a holy time 

Unseen but by Sir Walter ? 
It is his guilty soul creates the vision," 

LIV. 

She ceased : and from her face the strange light faded 

That lit it with such glory ; 
And clinging to her father's arm, her breast 
Throbbing tumultuously as yet oppressed 

By memory of the story 
With which her chosen lord she had upbraided. 

LV. 

And those who heard her gazed at one another 

As if they'd seen an angel ; 
Round-lidded wonder looking from each face 
Save black Sir Walter's, whose down-looking gaze, 

White lips, and pale chocks' change, all 
Betray the guilty fear he strives to smotlier. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 65 

LVI. 

As yet not one the painful calm had broken 

That followed Lillian's story : 
Its truth they could not doubt ; some power had shed 
Such strength into her voice as if the dead 

Had risen, gashed and gory, 
Up from his vault beneath their feet, and spoken. 

LVII. 

At length the ancient Abbot, raising slowly 

His meek eyes to their faces, 
Said, " Hear me children. Heaven often- times 
Reveals by seeming trifles dreadful crimes, 

Although their bloody traces 
For years all human search had baffled wholly. 

LVIII. 

" I know in women, as in angels, feeling 

Oft reason's place assumeth. 
And that man's duller and earth-trammeled mind 
Through many tortuous mazes gropes to find, 

Heaven-sent unto her cometh ; 
The truth more quickly yet as certainly revealing. 

LIX. 

" And therefore though as yet slight proof is given 

That Lillian's words are sooth : 
I dare be bold to say that on his face 



66 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

I see the impress of blood-guiltiness : 

Ha ! shrink'st thou from the truth"? 
Thou'rt guilty ! or there is no truth in Heaven." 

LX, 

Fiercely Sir Walter smote the altar railing 

AVhen the old priest had ended : 
And. his dark face made darker with a frown, 
Drew off his bridal glove and dashed it down, 

And thus his anger vented : 
" Few words have I to answer to this railinii: ; 

Lxr. 
" I cannot war with woman nor with friar ; 

Their garments' shield is o'er them ; 
But is there one who wears a knightly sword 
Who dares repeat the slander he has heard ? 

There lies my gage before him — 
Take it who will, he's a thousand times a liar !" 

LXII. 

Earl Godwin gently put aside fair Lillian 

And stooped to take the gage, 
When quickly forward strode young Hugo Percy, 
And said, "Nay, good old Earl, I pray you mercy ; 

'Tis not for silvery age. 
But my young arm to punish this false villain. 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 67 

LXIII. 

" I take thy gage, Sir Walter, and proclaim tliec 

Assassin, and base knight ! 
And God so speed me on the trial day 
As I believe that thou did'st foully slay 

De Vere ; for in fair fight. 
And man to man he surely had o'ercame thee." 

LXIV. 

" Ha ! wlio else here will champion sweet Lillian, 

And put his life in danger ? 
Come on ! I'll make a glove of every thread 
To answer gages with," he fiercely said, 

" One will not sate my anger : 
Upon this quarrel I will fight a million." 

LXV. 

Champions enough were there had tliey been needed, 

Who would have gladly ventured 
Their lives for Lillian's truth ; but till the fight 
With Percy shall be fought, no other knight 

Shall in this cause be entered. 
Nor other challenge from Sir Walter heeded. 

LXVI. 

Unlike the cavalcade, all smiles and gladness. 

That but an hour ao-o 
Went forth from Godwin's castle, they return 



68 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Witliout a smile — but some with eyes that burn 

With passion's angry glow ; 
And others shining with the drops of sadness. 



Lxvn. 
Tis midnight, midnight black — the moon is hidden, 

And not a star's in Heaven, 
When sits Sir Walter in his lonely room, 
Upon his heart a more than common gloom. 

As through his brain are driven 
Dark thoughts like phantoms coming there unbidden. 

LXVIII. 

Like houseless specters 'round and 'round the tower 
The rain-drenched winds go shrieking. 

Shaking the trembling casements angrily, 

Beating against the doors importunately. 
Some open loop-hole seeking 

Where they may enter at this bitter hour. 

LXIX. 

With hands against his throbbing temples pressing 

He sits before the embers ; 
His haggard eyes upon the waning blaze 
Fixed vacantly \ his mind a confused maze 

Distinctly naught remembers 
Save that dark deed that there is no redressin 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 
LXX. 

He would to bed ; but fears to trust his body 

In sleep's unarmed position. 
How knows lie but that in the midnight gloom 
Some angry phantom will invade his room 

To drag him to perdition ? 
He knows he is abandoned of God — he 

LXXI. 

Is all alone henceforth — waking or sleeping, 

No guard 'twixt him and evil : 
Good angels never more shall watch his bed, 
Nor tend his waking footsteps ; but, instead, 

A black, unpi tying devil 
Shall have his spirit evermore in keeping. 

LXXII. 

The taper flickers strangely : now burns brightly. 

Now trembling and uncertain ; 
Dim, ghostly noises rumble through the hall, 
And ghostly shadows creep along the wall. 

The waving of a curtain, 
Which some unusual gust doth ruffle lightly, 

LXXIII. 

Makcth him start and shudder, for he fancies 

That 'tis the dusky wing 
Of some dark s})irit entering the room ; 



70 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

Nay, for a moment thinks that in the gloom 

He sees a shadowy thing 
Approaching him with stern, unwinking glances. 

LXXIV. 

Hark ! Avhat is that ? 'tis not the wild wind sighing — 

'Tis not the rain that beateth 
Against the window panes ; his blood aware 
Instinctively of who those coming are, 

Back to his heart retreateth, 
Leaving his cheeks as pallid as if dying. 

LXXV. 

They come ! they come ! he hears their felt-shod feet 

Silent as snow-flakes falling 
Upon the marble paved corridor ; 
Noiseless as night ope swings the rust-hinged door ; 

They come ! those shapes appalling — 
Their eyes are on him, and there's no retreat. 

LXXVI. 

No golden light is gleaming 'round Maluna 

Like that Avhen first he met her ; 
All beauty gone, she comes, a beldame foul 
And hideous as a graveyard-haunting ghoul ; 

A sneer with mockery bitter 
Twisting her thin blue lips. And where is pale lonah ? 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 71 

LXXVIL 

SliG cometli not with truth's mild halo o'er her : 

But in the distance stands 
A shadowy shape like her, with vailed head bent 
Upon her breast in griefs abandonment ; 

Chained limbs, and fettered hands 
Clasped helplessly and hopelessly before her. 

LXXVIII. 

Great as the change in these, the change is greater 

In Ethelred De Yere ; 
Not as a drooping phantom comes he now, 
But an avenging angel, with a brow 

Blazing with ire severe, . 
And mortal anger kindling every feature. 

LXXLX. 

Upsprang Sir AValter as the twain drew near ; 

Silent, save one deep moan 
His soul wrung from his throat in its great dread ; 
Fain had he turned his back on them and fled, 

But a weird power shone 
In those strange eyes of Ethelred De Vere 

LXXX. 

That held his glaring eyeballs fascinated : 

He needs must look upon them, 
As liackward goo.- ho out the chamber door, 



72 THE LADYE LILLIAN. 

And all along the gloomy corridor : 

Even there he can not shun them — 
The darkness will not hide them ; crime-created, 

LXXXI. 

They are as omnipresent, as immortal, 

And pitiless as death. 
The forms advance with every step he takes, 
Nearer, still nearer ! Ah ! how his heart quakes. 

How gasping comes his breath — 
They almost touch him as he leaves the portal 

LXXXII. 

That opens on the balcony surrounding 

That dizzy-heighted tower. 
Backward, still backward goes he, senseless, blind 
To the impending death so close behind : 

He doth not heed its power, 
This fronting danger every sense confounding. 

LXXXIII. 

His back against the balustrade is pushing ; 

He heeds not the obstruction, 
Although witli present dcatli it may be fraught ; 
For Ethelred's hand is stretched toward his throat 

To drao' him to destruction : 

o 

Another step — and licadlong lie is rushing 



THE LADYE LILLIAN. 73 

LXXXIV. 

Down through the spectre winds that shriek around him, 

And beat him with their pinions. 
Shrieking he falls ! Ah ! his despairing cry, 
It sounded like a lost soul's agony 

When entering Hell's dominions — 
Driven hy the Furies that had seized and bound him, 

LXXXV. 

Day came ; and sorrowing eyes looked out of Heaven, 

And saw pale servants bending 
Above a shapeless mass of human clay 
That was Sir Walter Neville yesterday. 

Such his deserved ending ! 
Gone to his dread account unhallowed and unshriven ! 



BIOGEN. 

She was all compact of Beauty, 

Like the sunlight and the flowers ; 
One of those radiant beings 

That prove this world of ours 
Not utterly forsaken 

By the angel host of God, 
Since now and then its valleys 

By their holy feet are trod. 
If her hair was black and glossy, 

Or golden-hued and bright ; 
Or if her eyes were azure, 

Or dark and deep as Night, 
I kn^w not — this truth only 

Do I know or care to know ; 
Never a lovelier maiden 

Blest this weary world below 
In the castle ruled lier father. 

And his lands stretched miles away 
Mine toiled down in the hamlet 



IMOGEN. 75 

For his daily bread each day. 
Too far apart were we, 

Too high wert thou for me, 

Oh Lady Imogen ! 
When the meadow was all golden 

With the cowslips'- May-day bells, 
And the sweet breath of the primrose 

Came up from fragrant dells ; 
When the blackbird and the throstle 

Whistled cheerly in the morn, 
And the sky-lark quivering upward, 

Rose singing from the corn ; 
Then when the blessed Spring-time 

Filled with beauty all the earth, 
From her father's lordly castle 

Would this maiden wander forth 
Where the violets were blooming 

In unfrequented dells ; 
O'er the mead where zephyrs pilfered 

Fragrance from the cowslips' bells 
Wheresoever Beauty lingered 

There this radiant maiden strayed, 
And Beauty by her presence 

More beautiful was made. 
The sunshine looked more golden 

As it gleamed around her head, 
And the grass more green and living 



76 IMOGEN. 

Eose up beneath lier tread ; 
And the flowers more bright and fragrant 

To greet her coming grew ; 
And mad with love and music 

The birds about her flew. 
Oh ! she was the loveliest maiden 

That ever eye did see : 
She was sunshine, she was music, 

She was all the world to me. 
But she never knew the passion 

That set my soul a-flame ; 
That hid me by the hedge-row 

To watch whene'er she came 
To see her glorious beauty 

Like a star from heaven go by : 
Oh ! to see her but one moment 

God knows that I would die. 

Oh, peerless Imogen I 

They bore her to the Abbey 

With the pomp of princely woe, 
With steeds and hearse and snowy pall, 

And white plumes drooping low. 
And high, proud heads were bending 

In her funereal train. 
And princely eyes were weeping 

Heavy tears like summer rain. 



IMOGEN. 77 

I far-off followed slowly, 

No tears were in mine eye ; 
'Twas not for one so lowly 

To weep for one so liigli : 
But Oh ! since she hath vanished 

With her have seemed to go 
All the beauty, all the music 

Of tliis weary world below ! 

Dead, dead, and buried, Imogen ! 



4* 



SOME TRUTHS. 

Tis well enough to sit and sing 

Soft, soothing strains in human praise, 
How honest worth and talent bring 

Respect and honor in these days ; 
That, 'spite of want or poverty, 

Or tattered garb and hardened hand, 
The man who labors faithfully 

Among the best may equal stand. 
But let those who thus sweetly sing, 

(Knowing poverty alone by name) 
Endure, as thousands do, its sting. 

Then see if they will sing the same. 
Let them go out into the earth. 

In this gold-governed age of ours. 
With no more wealth than honest worth, 

No friends besides their native powers ; 
And see how gilded sin sits high 

In posts of profit and respect, 
While honest worth goes humbly by, 

Treated with scorn, contempt, neglect : 
How rich men's trite or stolen tliouo-hts 



SOME TRUTHS. 79 

Are lauded by tlie servile throng, 
Whilst works by poor-clad Genius wrought 

Receive no praise from pen or tongue. 
How in the street, the court, the hall. 

The world bows smiling, hat in hand, 
To those, though base and criminal, 

Who much of worldly wealth command. 
How murder, theft, adultery, 

Bear milder names, or find some tongue 
To palliate their villany 

When 'tis a rich man does the wrong : 
How Justice can be bought and sold, 

Its courts a farce and mockery 
When Wrong defends a cause with gold 

^Gainst outraged Eight with Poverty. 
And if, when noting all of these, 

Their lyres still sound so false a strain, 
In Heaven's name let them throw them by 

Nor ever touch their strings again ! 
No ! tell me not this is a time 

When worth and talent honor win, 
'When poverty is such a crime, 

And wealth excuses any sin. 
This is the fabled " Golden Age'* 

Of which the ancient poets told, 
For riches every heart engage ; 

The God of all the world is— Gold. 



SONG OF THE SMITHY, 

Blow ! blow I strike ! strike ! 

Sons of tlie forge's glow 1 
All arts that bless man's helplessness 

To us their being owe. 
The plow that mellows the fruitful earth, 

The sickle that reaps the grain — 
^eath our hammers' blows they sprang to birth 

'Midst a shower of fiery rain. 
Hammer and hatchet, chisel and saw, 

Lever, and vice, and screw — 
The implements of every trade 
On our forge and anvil grew. 

Then Blow ! blow ! strike ! strike ! 
Sons of the forge's glow ! 
All arts that bless man's helplessness 
To us their being owe 

Clang ! cling ! as our hammers ring 

On the anvil's shining front. 
The red iron grows beneath our blows 

To some useful implement. 



SONG OP THE SMITHY. SI 

We make the tools for every craft 

And studious and thoughtful men 
Are debtors to us for the keen-edged blade 

That sharpens the mighty pen. 

Then Blow I blow ! etc. 

Fulton and Watt, and a thousand more 

Had studied and dreamed in vain, 
Had not our arm given outer form 

To the beings of their brain. 
Creatures of iron muscles and limbs 

In our forge's glow have birth, 
That do the work of a thousand men, 

And girdle with strength the earth. 

Then Blow ! blow ! etc. 



The earth is very beautiful wlien Spring awakes the 

flowers, 
And bright and full of glory in the gorgeous summer 

hours ; 
And a solemn beauty clothes it when the waning forest 

trees 
Wave their many-colored garments in the bracing 

Autumn breeze. 

But the beauty of the seasons hath no more a joy for 

me : 
My heart is ever wandering across the trackless sea, 
Where the coral spreads its branches o^er the gallant 

and the brave, 
And priceless gems shed luster on the gloom of Ocean's 

grave. 

For thou'rt sleeping there, my lost one, thy long and 
dreamless rest, 



PLAINT OF THE MARINEU's WIDOW. 85 

With the heavy weight of ocean pressing on thy manly 

breast ; 
Thy dark hair wreathed and tangled with the dank 

weeds of the sea, 
And thine eyes all dim and glassy that once shone so 

gloriously. 

Where was I when thou wert battling with the angry 

winds and waves ? 
When the tempest scooped the ocean up, and bared its 

horrid caves ? 
When the last frail plank was shivered, and thou, in 

agony, 
Wert struggling alone with the unconquerable sea ? 

Was I laughing? was I singing? was I full of idle 

mirth ? 
Or sitting sad and lonely by mynewly widowed hearth, 
With a cloud upon my spirit, and the tear rain in mine 

eye, 
Very sad and full of sorrow, yet I did not know for 

why? 

Oh! would I had been with thee on that dark and 

stormy tide ! 
And now were in my rightful place a-sleeping at thy 

side! 



For earth looks dark and wearisome, and life is sad to 

me, 
Since tliou tliat wert the light of both art quenched 

in the sea. 

Sadly now the days I number, till that blessed one shall 

come, 
When I shall vail mine aching eyes with the curtain of 

the tomb. 
Joyful hope I though leagues divide us, we yet shall 

meet again. 
When the trumpet of the Lord shall call the dead 

from earth and main. 



m PHILOSOPHY. 

Let those wlio choose repine at fate 

And droop their heads with sorrow ; 
I laugh when cares upon me wait ; 

I know they'll leave to-morrow. 
My purse is light, but what of that ? 

My heart is light to match it ; 
And if I tear my only coat 

I laugh the while T patch it. 

IVe seen some elves who called themselves 

My friends in summer weather, 
Blown far away in sorrow's day. 

As winds would blow a feather ; 
I never grieved to see them go — 

The rascals, who would heed tliem ? 
For what's the use of having friends 

If false when most you need them ? 



86 MY PHILOSOPHY. 

IVe seen some, rich in worldly gear, 

Eternally repining, 
Their hearts a prey to every fear, 

With gladness never shining : 
I would not change my lightsome heart 

For all their gold and sorrow, 
For that's a thing that all their wealth 

Can neither buy nor borrow. 

And still when sorrows come to me — 

As sorrows sometimes will come — 
I find the way to make them flee 

Is, bidding them right welcome : 
They can not brook a cheerful look, 

They're used to sobs and sighing. 
And he who meets them with a smile, 

Is sure to set them flying. 



WILD FLOWERS. 

By the brook^s side, on the meadow, 

In forests dim and lone, 
They are springing up in beauty 

By human hands unsown ; 
The violet and the woodbine, 

And the bright anemone : 
Gaudy poppies, blushing roses, 

Lilies, types of purity ; 
A thousand varied colors, 

A thousand shapes of grace, 
With their fragrance and their beauty 

Making glad the wilderness ; 
Thick and widely are they scattered 

Over dell and forest sward 
By the wild bird and the zephyr, 

The winged sowers of the Lord. 
And heedless men pass by them, 

Or crush them 'neath their tread, 
Noting not their silent beauty 

Nor the fragrance from them shed. 



88 WILD FLOWERS. 

Even so in crowded cities, 

In the ]3j-ways of the earth, 
Are human flowers blooming 

By many a lowly hearth : 
Truth, gentleness and wisdom 

Gilding many a poor fireside 
With a beauty and a glory 

Unknown to halls of pride ; 
And the great world passeth by them 

With a proud and lofty air, 
Stone-blind to all the beauty 

That virtue painteth there. 
Yea ! haughtily sweep by them 

The proud ones of the land, 
Scarce deeming them the creature; 

Of their Creator's hand : 
Yet resteth with these lowly 

Bliss indescribable ; 
For God's ministering angels 

Love to linger where they dwell. 



LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. 

Oh ! tins sweet world is beautiful, and Life 

Is a dear mystery full of loveliness ; 
My 'raptured soul with joy is ever rife 

With ecstacy that will not let distress 
Come near my spirit ; neither cares nor woes 

Darken the cheerfulness that day and night 
Fills my whole being, till it overflows 

With the full measure of its calm delight. 
The spring-time, breathing o'er the sleeping earth, 

With her sweet magic calleth bud and flower, 
Song-bird, and insect from their hidings, forth 

To revel in the sunshine and the shower. 
And I have joy with them — my soul goes out. 

Like a good neighbor, holding converse sweet 
With wind and sunshine, bud, and leaf, and flower, 

And every living creature that I meet. 
Yes, when the sun of green and smiling May 

Kisses the rose-bud into blushing life, 
I love to leave the city's noise away. 

And muse alone, untroubled by its strife. 
Beneath the spreading arms of some brave tree, 



90 LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. 

Where a clear brook runs laughing through the wood,. 
I stretch myself, and let my fancy free 

To clothe with shapes the sylvan solitude. 
Dryad and Fawn have left the vale and glen, 

And Naiads rise no more from fount or stream ; 
Truth says they are not, and cold Wisdom's pen 

Mocks and unpeoples Fancy's fairy realm : 
Yet dreams come o'er me in those pleasant hours, 

And shapes throng 'round me such as erst of old 
Held dance and revel midst the summer flowers, 

Or peeped at mid-day from the heath and wold. 
'Tis sweet to watch the thousand living things 

That sport before me, innocent and gay ; 
The butterflies, with gem-bespangled wings, 

Kissing their sister flowers in amorous play ; 
The robin's whistle in the wood rings clear ; 

The bob-a-link within the meadow prates ; 
The blue-bird chirrups in the orchard near, 

And 'midst the grain the quails call to their mates 
Down by the brook-side rest the lazy kine ; ^ 

The sheep, like snow-flakes, dot the distant hills ; 
In what rich unison their bells combine — 

The cows' deep bass, the sheep bells' treble trills. 
A few yards from my usual resting-place 

A squirrel in a log hath dug his cell ; 
Ten times an hour he leaves his hole a space. 

Mounts on the stump and gnaws liis acorn shell. 
Peace, purity, and universal Ipvc 



LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. 91 

I read in every living thing I see ; 
My pulse in unison with ail doth move, 

And throbs a silent hymn to Deity. 
A holy calm my being all pervades ; 

If earth has thorns, their stings I feel not now — 
That God is good and every creature aids, 

Is all I know, and all I care to know. 
Thoughts of my fellow-man come o'er me then, 

Rich with his dignity, his worth, and truth : 
Down-fallen though he is, I see him when 

He walked unsinning in his Eden youth. 
I know that vice hath marked him with a scar, 

But in the vilest, still a spark I see 
That once was part of the ethereal fire 

That was and is to all eternity ; 
And visions of his future fate arise. 

As still his upward march is bravely trod. 
In spite of every hindrance, to the prize — 

Complete perfection, like his Father — God. 
'Tis coming yet ; big grows the womb of Time, 

And few short years will usher in the birth 
Of Man the Righteous, perfect, and sublime — 

Man, as God wills him, worthy this fair earth 
And then I think, if earth such joy hath given, 

And life be fraught with such sweet ecstacy. 
How all-surpassing beautiful must Heaven, 

And how ecstatic life eternal, be ! 



SONG OF THE MESSENGER BIRD. 

(a reply to the ''messenger bird" by MRS. HEMANS.) 

I've come, I liave come from the spirit's land, , 

And a treasured song is mine ; 
I bear for the wounded heart a balm 

And a joy for those that pine. 

The friends that ye bade on earth " good bye," 

With cheeks so pale and wan, 
They are there in the light of a cloudless sky, 

And their all of grief is done. 

The chieftain that left his bow unstrung, 

And the sage with his locks of snow. 
And the maid whose voice like the night-bird's rung 

In its plaintiveness of woe, 

And the youth with the laughing eye are there — 

And the mother who left her babe 
Swinging to and fro in the summer air 

Beneath the sycamore's shade. 



SONG OF THE MESSENGER -BIRD. 93 

They sit on the banks where the bright flowers gleam, 

And they dream not of toil or pain, 
For they've drank of the fountain's living stream, 

They have drank — and are young again. 

And they bade me speed on my glittering wing 

From the kingdom of nightlcss day, 
To the dim old groves where they loved to sing, 

And thus to the mourning say : 

"We tune our harps by the bright blue streams 

That lave on a gem-clad shore, 
And our lives are as sweet as an infant's dreams, 

And we sigh not, nor weep we more. 

We are changed from the sick and sad of earth 

To a band that know not care ; 
But our hearts still yearn toward our native hearth, 

And the friends we loved while there. 

We watch ye, friends, when the night wind's breath 

Lies hushed over moor and hill : 
For love extends past the bourne of death — • 

We have loved and we love ye still. 

We are there unseen by the home fire's blaze, 
As our tales ye repeat again ; 



94 SONG OP THE MESSENGER-BIRD. 

When ye sing the dear songs of other days 
We are there, and we bless ye then. 

And we hover o'er when the hour of prayer 

Comes on at the close of even, 
Midst the hallowed family band we are there 

And we bear those prayers to Heaven. 



THE AWAKLXG. 

The day is coming, countrymen, at last ; 

See ! o'er the liill-tops peers its welcome light ! 

Cheer we its advent ! cheer we, for the night, 
The long, long night of slavery is past ! 

We've groaned beneath a cruel scourge for years, 
Bowed down, as men should never bow ; too long 

Steeping the food on which Ave starved in tears 
Wrung from us by the iron hand of wrong. 

The lordly priests have fattened on our sweat ; 

Our toil hath filled the coffers of the drone ; 
Our blood the sod of foreign lands hath wet. 

While these have reveled quietly at home. 

We've seen our children premature decay ; 

We've heard them cry, "Oh Father, give us bread!" 
AYe've seen our wives grow thinner day by day 

Belield our father's old, time-honored head 



96 THE AWAKING. 

Go famished to the grave. And why ? Our hands, 
Not slow nor skill-less, labored night and day, 

Because that from the meed that toil demands 
These robbers tore the better half away. 

But these are passing — thank God for it ! Yes ! 

Bright o'er th' horizon gleams a cheering ray — 
The sun of Liberty — our sorrowing land to bless. 

Behold its twilight ! Shall^it grow to day? 

^Tis with ourselves if it shall be or no — 

Our wills can make it, will it when we may ; 

God hath given hands and arms to strike the blow ; 
Shall we exert them and be freemen ? say. 

There is a spirit in our country's length, 
Toiling unseen, deep in the hearts of men — 

It laughs at duno-eons, scorns the bayonet's strength, 
And it shall lash these vampires to their den. 

Not only here, but over all the world 
That miglity. spirit hath its work began ; 

Kings from their thrones and scepters shall be hurled, 
And no proud worm shall lord it over man. 

Mind is aroused at last — the immortal part 

Asserts the native dignity which God 
Bestowed upon it. Slavery's cruel smart 

Shall cease, with black Oppression's broken rod. 



THE AWAKING. 07 

Man shall be free ! Shout we aloud for this ! 

Each sliall be king ! God speed the glorious hour ! 
Earth shall return t' her ancient Eden bliss, 

And all her hills shall praise that spirit's power. 

Hail we the twilight, toil we for the noon — 

Swear, by the pains and mis'ries we have known, 

By Liberty's inestimable boon, 
Whose priceless joys we hope to make our own. 

By man's inherent worth and dignity ! 

(Lift up each hand ! lift, brothers, high in air) — • 
Thrones shall bo crumbled, and our country free ! 

This, by our hopes of earth and heaven, we swear ! 



A SPEmG-TIME MATIN. 

Up ! up ! and see how tlie east grows red 

With the blush of coming day ; 
The stars grow pale, faint — faint — they're fled , 

Like shapes in a dream away. 
Up ! this is no time for folding hands, 

And turning upon the side : 
There's a breath on the hills that the heart expands, 

And quickens its rosy tide. 

Come forth ! let us wander the forest through, 
And breathe the sweet scent of the morning dew 

That swims in the violet's bell, 
And list to the blue-bird's chirruping song 
As he flutters the orchard trees among, 

Bidding the morrow hail ! 

Oh, 'tis sweet from the clover to dash the dew. 

It sendeth the blood with a free gush through ^ 

Every vein as it throbs with bliss : 
'Tis a crime against Nature's self to sleep 
When life and health in rich measure deep 

Are abroad in a morn like this ! 



THE FEAST OF THE DEAD. 

[A custom exists among some of the tribes of American Indians of re- 
pairing at certain seasons of the year to the burial-place of the tribe, tak- 
ing with them the choicest dainties they can procm-e, which they divide 
into parcels, and lay upon the graves of their deceased relatives. They 
then seat themselves in solemn circle, and commence a low, melancholy 
chaunt, calling upon their departed friends to arise and partake of the 
food which they have provided. This ceremony is called *'The Feast of 
the Dead."] 

Many a moon liatli the blue sky bore, 

Sage of the silvery hair, 
Since we heaped the clods 'neath the sycamore, 

And left thee slmnbering there. 
Sweet is thy sleep— but, father, wake ! 

Wake ! for thy children come 
With the honied store the wild bees make, 

Sweet grape, and juicy plum ; 
And the squirrel's tender flesh we bring, 

And wild rice white and sweet : 
Close by thy grave lies our offering. 

Rise, father, rise and eat ! 



100 THE FEAST OF THE DEAD. 

Warrior-hunter I unbent 's thy bow, 

And dim is thy battle blade ; 
Thou hast slumbered long on the pillow low, 

Where thy manly form we laid. 
The food we left on tliy grave is gone — 

Thou art hungered — we bring thee meat ; 
The bison's haunch, the red deer's loin ; 

Wake ! hunter, wake and eat ! 

When the prairie flowers drooped and died, 

And the woods grew red and sere, 
Even then, in the blush of thy maiden pride, 

We laid thee sorrowinu: here. 
Oh, maid of the footstep light and free, 

And eyes like the gentle fawn, 
Whither from hearts that worshiped thee 

Hast thou, their idol, gone ? 
Keturn, return to us, long-lost maid, 

On thy footsteps light and fleet ! 
Sweet food for thee on thy grave weVe laid, 

Wake, maiden, wake and eat ! 

Vainly we call through the live-long night 

On the dead who hear us not ; 
'Midst the joys of a land more fair and bright, 

Our wearier world's forgot. 
There's a land where the deer and the buffalo 



THE FEAST OF THE DEAD. 101 

Are roaming in herds untold : 
Where tlie maize, the rice, and the sweet plum grow, 

And the harvest e'er waves in gold. 
Even there, in that bright and holy sphere, ^ 

Are the friends we loved so well ; 
And their eyes that wept have no more a tear, 

For their joys no tongue can tell. 
And shall they who feast upon holy food 

And drink from th' eternal spring. 
Be lured to earth by our tuneless song, 

Or the perishing food we bring ? 
No ! vainly we call— they return no more, 

Save when in some sacred hour 
We hear a voice we have heard before. 

But fraught with a spirit-power : 
A voice that calmeth our fiercest mood 

When the angry blood runs high, 
That cheers us 'midst sorrow and solitude, 

As if conscious of angels nigh. 
Yes, they're with us yet— the holy dead— 

By a thousand signs we know 
They're ever keeping a spirit-watch 
O'er those they loved below. 



THE CHIPPEWA LOVER'S SOM. 

I SIT beneath the maple tree 

That stands thy wigwam near, 
And through my flute breathe tenderly 

The strain maids love to hear. 
I won to-day a hunter's prize 

Where red deer bounded free, 
And now before thy door it lies, 

My offering to thee. 

Come ! Me-me, come ! fair forest dove, 

And sit thee here by me, 
And list a warrior's tale of love, 

His tale of love for thee. 
Since first in battle with the Sioux 

The right to wed I won, 
My heart, Me-me, has e'er beat true 

For thee, and thee alone. 



103 



Ha ! when our young men danced around 

The war-fire's glorious light, 
Whose war-whoop had the fiercest sound ? 

"Whose knife and hatchet bright 
Sank deepest in the war-post then ? 

'Twas mine, Me-me ! Ne-kon 
Was foremost of the Chippewa men 

Because thine eyes looked on. 

Ten scalps — a chieftain's every one— 

Of Ne-kon's might the proof 
Which his right arm in battle won 

Hang from my wigwam's roof ; 
Elk-skins, and deer, with many a fan^ 

Of catamount and bear. 
And Mas-sa-saw-ga's rattles hang, 

Proud trophies, also there. 

Ne-kon 's a hunter bold and free, 

A warrior true and tried, 
And he will guard thee tenderly 

If thou wilt be his bride : 
For bravest heart in battle-field 

Is tenderest at home ; 
Then, Me-me, to a warrior yield, 

And be his loved bride — Come I 



SONG OF THE REJECTED LOYER. 

IVe watclied the summer sun go down 

Like a cliieftain to his rest, 
And the new moon shine like silver love, 

O'er the forests of the West ; 
And the stars from out the blue sky gleam, 

Whilst 'neath the maple tree 
I sit and wake my flute's soft tones 

To win a smile from thee. 

Pa-wap-e-tau's a gallant chief, 

His lodge is wide and warm, 
And graced with many a warrior's scalp, 

Won by his strong right arm ; 
And fleet liis foot in war or chase, 

And strong both heart and limb j 
And all are thine, my fair Ka-teesh, 

If thou'lt be bride to him. 

Thou comest not yet — the night wears on, 
And still thou art not here— 



SONG OP THE REJECTED LOVER. 105 

All, wherefore dost thou linger so 

When love's call soimdeth clear ? 
Thou wilt not come ! The moon sinks down, 

And darkly o'er the trees 
The spirit of the midnight throws 

His gloomy draperies. 

Ah ! Ka-teesh, wherein art thou strong ? 

Thy limbs are frail and weak ; 
And who had thought a cruel heart 

Looked out from eyes so meek ? 
Yet thou art strong — Pa-wap-e-tau, 

Who laughs at warriors^ might, 
Is made a woman by thy scorn, 

And weeps the live-long night. 

He weeps — the warrior weeps for thee, 

That never wept before, 
Not even when the torture stake 

Was crimsoned with his gore. 
Thou aj't more cruel than the Sioux ; 

He tortures but to slay ; 
Thou torturest and bid'st me live 

To worse than death each day. 

Farewell ! the forest darker grows 

As deeper grows the night. 
But morn will bring the sun again 

To gild the trees with light ; 



106 CHEER up! 

But in my heart this gloom must last — 

No light can bid it flee, 
Since thou that art my being's sun 

Wilt shine no more on me. 



CHEER UP! 

Cheer up ! cheer up ! Why look so sad ? 
Though earth in sombre guise is clad, 

What good will sighing do ? 
" My griefs are very great," you say : 
Quite likely — almost every day 

I have my troubles too : 

And so has every other man : 
It is our lot ; but yet we can 

Well bear them if we will. 
There's not a grief the world can bring, 
But what, despite its sharpest sting, 

It has some comfort still. 

Though friends grow cold, as some friends will, 
And fortune proves unkindly, still 

I hold it sin to pine 
Whilst 'round me many men I see 



CHEER up! 107 



Whose loads of care and misery 
Are heavier far than mine. 

If ever I'm disposed to sigh, 

I turn my thoughts to years gone by, 

And view each passage o'er ; 
And though I find enough of ill, 
This truth is plain to cheer me still, 

The good is vastly more. 

This strengthens me in every grief, 
And fixes firmer my belief 

And trust in God secure ; 
I know He sends to none below 
A greater load of care and woe 

Than each can well endure. 

Nerved by this thought I play my part, 
And ever keep a cheerful heart, 

Whatever may befall ; 
And doing all I can to cheer 
The sorrows of my fellows here, 

Trust God, and hope through all. 



IS IT WELL WITH THEE? 

Mother, sorrowing o'er thy child. 

Taken back as soon as given ; 
Wife, whose widowed heart 's made wild 

By the dear bond rudely riven ; 
Parents wailing for a son 

Who was all your pride and stay ; 
Friend who mourn'st a dear friend gone, 

Or a brother called away ; 
Husband weeping o'er thy mate 

Dearer than thyself to thee ; 
All by death left desolate. 

Tell me, is it well with ye ? 

Yes, 'tis well. The loved and lost 

Are not lost to us forever ; 
They have but before us crossed 

O'er the deep and shadowy river 
That divideth the two worlds 

Of Eternity and Time ; 
And they often come from thence 

Bringing to us bliss sublime : 



IS IT WELL WITH THEE? 109 

Spirits whispering to our spirits 

Thoughts too subtle far to tell 
In the world that flesh inherits — 

Yes, with us 'tis well ! 'tis well I 
They're more ours than when on earth ; 

Then they were not always nigh, 
Noio where'er we wander, they, 

Guardian angels, 'round us fly. 
Yes, they're Avith us everywhere, 

Treading every path we tread, 
Guarding us with pious care 

From the snares about us spread. 

Time was that our hearts were prone 

Too much to rely on earth ; 
Ne'er bestowing tliought upon 

That high realm that gave us birth ; 
But since those we loved have gone 

Thither, Heaven seems more near ; 
And our thoughts oft upward fly, 

For we have an interest there. 



YET TO BE. 

I SAW the misty curtains 

That enshroud the Future, rise, 
And the glory of humanity 

Unfolded to my eyes. 
All tribes, all tongues, all nations, 

I saw them where they stood 
In the holy bonds united 

Of a common brotherhood. 

All the olden, hoary falsehoods 

That had caused the angels ruth, 
From the happy earth Avere banished. 

For man had learned the Truth ! 
Nation no more 'gainst nation 

Stood up in hostile strife ; 
Men knew that 'it was fratricide 

To take a human life. 

The dronely few no longer 
Were witli plenty surfeited, 



YET TO BE. Ill 

Whilst the toiling millions sulFered 

For a scanty loaf of bread ; 
No ! never more the lordly 

Held the lowly ones in thrall, 
For each man owned his portion 

Of the earth God gave to all. 

There were no courts of justice 

Where truth was bought and sold, 
Where needy Eight was vanquished 

By unholy Wrong with gold ; 
No ! each in this blest period 

Obeyed the higher laws 
Of the monitor within him, 

That plead his brother's cause. 

God, vilified no longer 

By lies in cloisters reared, 
Was loved as a dear Father, 

Not as a tyrant, feared. 
Men saw in storm and tempest, 

As well as calm and shine, 
The ever tender presence 

Of the Love that was Divine ; 

So that from West to Orient, 
From the South unto tlie North, 



112 YET TO BE. 

The love of God made lioly 
Every spot of this fair earth. 

Long and arduous was the struggle 
That had brought men up to this, 

Ere tliey were formed or fitted 
For this sum of happiness. 

But they'd won it, they had won it 

By their own strong heart and brain, 
And so won, earth had no power 

That could take 't from them again. 
Each truth of God discovered 

Was a step upon the way, 
Was a beam of light that broadened 

To the full and perfect day. 

Heaven and earth put on a brightness 

They had never known before, 
And constantly between them 

Angel wings passed evermore ; 
For grown as purely spiritual 

As souls in flesh can be, 
Men with these blessed beings 

Had communion constantly. 

This dusty frame I'm bound in 
Will have mouldered in the tomb 



TRIUMPHANT. ^^^ 

For many generations 

Ere that glorious day will come ; 

But 'twill come— and I sliall see it- 
Yea ! it gladdens me to know 

that I shall see this glory 
From the realm whereto I go. 



TRlIJlIPHANT. 



Open wide thy star-arched portal, 
Loving death ! a young immortal 

Seeks his heritage through thee ! 
From the darkness of earth's prison 
To the light of realms Elysian, 

Angel fingers beckon me. 

All around me and above me 
Cluster many souls that love me ; 

Some that once I knew, 
Who have trod this way before me 
"Wearing now such robes of glory 

As but angels do. 

Stand not 'round my bedside weeping, 
Earthly friends! my soul is leaping 



114 TRIUMPHANT. 

From its sliroud of clay, 
Full of joy and exultation 
That I've passed through earth's night statio^^ 

To eternal day. 

Who "was't said the road was lonely, 
Filled with ghostly shadows only, 

Which the soul must tread ? 
'Tis not so — 'tis full of pleasance, 
Glowing with the living presence 

Of those whom we call — Dead 

Father, mother, sister, brother, 
One more dear than every other — 

All old friends I see ; 
Their familiar faces glowing 
With the love-light overflowing 

In their hearts for me. 

With Death's film my eyes are glassing ; 
From my sight earth's forms are passing. 

Passing with my breath ; 
But the angel forms grow clearer, 
Brighter, drawing nearer, nearer, 

Oh ! can this be death ? 

This divine, exulting feeling. 
Every nerve of being thrilling, 



TRIUMPHANT. 115 

With excess of bliss ? 
Beauty bursting on my vision ; 
Harmonies divine, Elysian 

In my ears ? Oli ! this 

Is life ! Oh God ! Creator ! 
Lift me up, thy erring creature, 

Lift me up to Thee ! 
Breathe upon my joyful spirit, 
Sanctify it to inherit 

Immortality. 



A CHARACTER. 

I KNOW him well ; a man wliosc marble heart 
Ne'er felt the gentle impress of sweet charity ; 
Whose eye ne'er melted at another^s woe ; 
Whose voice ne'er soothed the mourner's heart-wrung 

grief; 
Whose purse, though rich, ne'er oped its iron claws 
To give relief to starving poverty. 
And yet the world's voice lauds him every day 
For deeds of piety and charity. 
For that he sitteth in the godly's seat, 
And prates of judgment and the world to come ; 
Rebuketh sin in loud unmeasured terms, 
And with a solemn visage mocks high heaven 
With noisy offerings of public prayer — 
For these, and for that to the so-called works 
Of public charity he giveth much, 
He 's called a man of philanthropic soul. 
Yes, he will ope his tightly graspc^d purse 
And give his tens and scores right liberally 
To famine-stricken people far away 



A CHARACTER. 117 

• 

Yet spurn the starving beggar from his door 
Nor give a doit to ease his hungry pangs ; 
Deeming himself right merciful that he 
Commits him not to jail for vagrancy. 
And much he giveth, too, to that good cause 
That sends to barbarous heathens precious books 
Which they can neither read nor understand. 
Yet will he see poor children of his race, 
Poor Christian children, growing rank and wild, 
Their minds untutored, and their souls untaught, 
Fall easy prey to every lowest vice, 
The fruitful progeny of ignorance 
And poverty, nor strive by purse, or work, 
To rescue them from such a bitter thralL 

For him no widow's, and no orphan's prayers 

Press with resistless energy the gates of Heaven 

And win from thence rich blessings for his soul ; 

No lowly heart throbs gratefully to him 

For timely succor in adversity ; 

No poor-born children learn to love his name 

For rescue from the thrall of ignorance. 

The world holds not one heart 

That does or has a cause to bless him ; ' 

But, rather, many think of him with hate, 

Because his cold, unfeeling heart so oft 

By word, or look, or deed, or all combined, 



118 A CHARACTER. 

Hatli added bitterness unto the grief 

Which Providence inflicted. 

Yet he, vain man, still flatter eth himself 

That charity his greatest virtue is, 

And that his hundreds given to win men's praise, 

Have won God's blessing as for loans to him ! 

Alas ! how fearful will his error seem 

When his poor naked soul shall stand before 

The throne of God, not covered with the mantle 

Of charitable deeds I 



TO AN ACQUITTED MURDERER. 

Go ! thou art free ! no felon's chain 

Is longer bound to thee ; 
The Laio declares thee free from stain, 

Go .' murderer, thou art free ! 

Some lesser villains, who, in strife, 

For wrong endured, or who 
To win the common bread of life 

Have slain a mortal too, 

Have for their crimes on gibbets hung 
Between the earth and heaven ; 

Thousands of such through penitence 
Have been by God forgiven ; 

And thou, who had'st no cause for blood, 

Thou murderer doubly foul. 
If thou had'st on the scaffold stood, 

It might have saved thy soul. 

But God is just. He rules the earth. 
And will not crime forgive ; 



120 TO AX ACQUITTED MURDERER. 

On all he sends liis judgments forth : 
Thy sentence is to live— 

To live! Oh God ! a life so banned 
As thou must hence endure, 

With spots upon thy guilty hand 
That seas could not wash pure ! 

Thy conscience may be hard as steel, 

But, hardened as thou art, 
There will be times when thou shalt feel 

Remorse appal thy heart. 

Oft in thy wild and gayest mood, 

'Midst wine and revelries, 
A spectre pale and drenched in blood 

Before thee shall arise. 

Its hand, the hand that hath been pressed 

In friendly grasp in thine, 
Pointing unto his bleeding breast- 
Why, thou can'st well divine. 

The friends that are at feast with thee 

May wonder at tliy iviglii ; 
That spectral shape they can not see— 

Thou scest it plain as light. 



TO AN ACQUITTED MURDERER. 121 

Ever before thee that shall stand, 

Though others see it not, 
Pointing with one pale warning fcand 

Unto the damning spot 

That ever seems to ^ape and cry 

For vengeance upon thee : 
Its other pointing up on high 

Where justice yet shall be ! 

Yea, be 't thy curse sometimes to know 

That thou wilt stand one day 
Before a juster court than earth^s, 

Where gold will have no sway. 

And if thy days be terrible, 

Made horrid by such sights 
That earth seems to thee like a hell, 

Oh ! what will be thy nights ? 

What phantoms will the dark create 

To mad thy heart and brain ; 
And make thee howl and pray for sleep, 

And howl and pray in vain I 

Or if thou sleep'st, such ghastly dreams 
Will make thy spirit quake, 



122 TO AN ACQUITTED MURDERER. 

Thou wilt rejoice when morning beams 
And think it heaven to wake. 



To wake, although 'tis but to have 
That same pale, murdered sprite 

Thou hurriedst to a timeless grave, 
Forever in thy sight. 

Oh ! wretched man, by blood-spot stained, 

Thou livest, and art free : 
But where 's the dying or the chained 

Who would exchange with thee ? 

Oh ! woful man ! Oh ! man of crime I 

Trust not what scoffers say, 
But use what God hath given thee — time, 

And try if thou can'st pray. 

Bend morn and night thy stubborn knee, 
And send thy cry to heaven ; 

And the same ghost that haunteth thee 
May tell thee thou'rt forgiven. 



A WIDOWER'S LAMENT OVER HIS DAUGHTER. 

Thou'rt gone from earth, my beautiful, thou'rt flown 

away, my dove ; 
Thou'rt gone with thy bright smiles to glad God's 

Paradise above : 
Thou'rt gone with thy young, rosy face, thy tender 

speaking eye : 
Alas ! I've loved as foolishly as if thou could'st not die. 

I'm bending over thee, my child, my tears fall fast as 

rain, 
I kiss thy pale, cold lips, and they return it not again ; 
The sun shines on thy half-closed eyes, but they see not 

the day, 
The lamp that lit their blue orbs up hath burnt its oil 

away. 

Oh! who shall 'guile my weariness, and bring my 

heart delight ? 
And whose sweet kiss shall greet me now when I come 

home at night ? 



124 A widower's lament over his daughter. 

Whose smile shall cheer my fireside now, whose voice 

shall make me glad ? 
Not thine, sweet rose untimely plucked ! not thine, my 

child, thou'rt dead ! ■ 

Dead ? dead? I can not think thou art — ^thou'rt smiling 

on me now ; 
The bloom hath scarcely left thy cheek where it was 

wont to glow ; 
Thy lips, half-parted, seem as if the warm breath through 

them rolled — 
I kiss them in my agony, and feel that they are cold. 

Cold, cold — alas! thou'rt dead, my dove, my dearly 

loved, my own, 
And I, a broken-hearted man, am in the world alone ! 
Oh, 'tis a heavy grief to bear, thou High and Holy One, 
But give the stricken father strength to say " Thy will 

be done!'' 



EVENING THOUGHTS. 

Oh 1 calm and sweet as dayliglit dies 

Do evening thoughts come on ; 
Like stars that peep from cloudless skies, 

Bright, lovely, one by one 
They come around us, and they bring 

Those visions back again 
That cheered us in our childhood's spring, 

Ere manhood with its train 
Of cares and woes to us had brought 

The bitterness of life — 
Ere half our seeming joys proved fraught 

With heaviness and strife. 
And Oh ! they bring to us once more 

The pleasant voice and brow 
That once on earth our dear friends wore- 

The cold sod covers now. 
The joys and tears of other years 

Come back to us again ; 
The joys more joyful, and the tears 

Divested of their pain. 
6* 



126 EVENING THOUGHTS. 

A blessed gift is memory, 

A blessed boon is hope ; 
Bereft of these, how ill could we 

With earthly sorrows cope ! 
But now, sweet memory from her store 

The pleasures only brings, 
And hope the distant future o'er 

A rosy mantle flings. 
Thank God for these ! Thank God for all 

The gifts that He has given ! 
The joyful memories of earth, 

The blessed hope of Heaven. 



"PUT MOMlYm THY PURSE." 

If thou wouldst be successful ever 
In every effort and endeavor, 

Take heed to this, my verse ; 
Before thou aim'st at any prize 
That in mankind's awarding lies, 

" Put money in thy purse.'' 

If thou would'st win a ruler's post, 
Be feted wheresoe'er thou goest. 

All tongues thy praise rehearse ; 
Have cringing slaves at thy command 
And like a monarch rule the land, 

" Put money in thy purse." 

Thou may'st be but a goose in sense, 
A very crow for eloquence ; 

Unfit to rule a horse ; 
No matter — tongues and pens will vie 
To laud thee to the very sky— 

" Put money in thy purse." 



128 



Or, almost tliou at poetic bays, 

And fain would'st weave melodious lays 

"And build tlie lofty verse " ? 
Before thou publisliest one line, 
Take heed to this advice of mine^ 

" Put money in thy purse," 

The faculty divine may be 
A hidden mystery to thee ; 

No matter — ^tis a curse — 
Thousands in thy harsh lines will find 
Beauties to which thyself wert blind : 

" Put money in thy purse," 

If for thy help-meet through thy life 
Fair beauty thou would'st have to wife, 

For better or for worse ; 
The fairest will not say thee nay 
If this injunction thou obey : 

" Put money in thy purse." 

Thou may'st be crooked, old, and grim, 
A satyr in both look and limb, 

A rogue, or something worse ; 
Scarce wit enough to keep thee warm : 
Thou'lt find none proof against the charm- 

" Put money in thy purse." 



TO SPRING. 

Thou hast left us, beautiful footed Spring, 

Thou hast left us months ago ; 
"Whither hast thou been wandering ? 

Whither art wandering now ? 

In the sunny-lipped south we know 
Thou hast folded the plumes of thy gleaming wiuj,. 

To watch the young buds glow 
Into life at thy musical voice, Spring. 

Come away ! come away ! we sigh for thee, 

"We have sighed the winter long ; 
We languish to hear gush from glen and from tree 

The notes of the sweet birds' song. 

Hid the palm-tree leaves among, 
Or shrined in perfume of orange-tree flowers, 

Whilst zephyrs about thee throng, 
Thou art sleeping and singing the live-long hours. 

Leave thy bed, plume thy wing, and swiftly Me 

Away to our northern land ; 
The earth holds flowers in her breast will die 

Unless bv thv wintr thevVe fanned. 



130 TO SPRING. 

Come with thy breath so bland 
And mellow her bosom, and soften the sky, 

And out at thy wizard command 
The violet shall peep with her heavenly eye ; 

And the earth shall put on her most beautiful sheen, 

Like a bride when her lord draws nigh : 
The trees shall again don their mantles of green, 

As thy zephyrs are wandering by ; 

And flowers of every dye 
Shall open their petals to welcome thee in, 

And a softer tint the sky 
Shall put on where thy magic hath been. 

Come ! Queen of the seasons ! our dearest, 

Come ! borne by the rosy-lipped hours ; 
Come with the treasures thou bearest, 

To gladden these hearts of ours. 

Sweet are thy various powers, 
And bright are the garments thou wearest ; 

Winter upon us lowers : 
We languish till thou in thy glory appearest, 
Come, sweet Spring ! 



MY BROTHER'S GRAVE. 

It is the pleasant time of fruits and flowers, 

The time of perfumed winds and glowing skies; 
Young birds are twittering in their leafy bowers, 

The wild-bee from his evening banquet hies ; 
All earth is jocund with sweet harmonies 

That gush unseen in valley, wood, and air ; 
Across the mead the whispering zephyr flies. 

And life is glowing 'round me everywhere : 
Cold inmate of the tomb ! thou hast in these no share. 

Bright flowers are springing near the simple stone 

That keeps its silent vigil o'er thy mould ; 
The musk-rose here in fresh-born beauty blown 

Does to the winds her glowing cheeks unfold ; 
Here, too, the sun-flower droops his head of gold, 

In seeming sorrow for thy early doom ; 
And here the willow's long green locks unrolled, 

Wave mournfully above thy narrow tomb. 
Shrouding thy resting-place in a sepulchral gloom. 

Above thy head the swallow skim^long ; 
The wood-dove cooing sits with* the shade 



132 MY brother's grave. 

Of forests near, and there his cheerful song 
The robin whistles as the day doth fade : 

The summer sun declining, tints the glade 
With slanted rays of many-colored light : 

Day dies : and lo ! where gloriously arrayed, 
Calm Hesperus comes, ushering in the bright 

Array of starry worlds that gem the coronet of Night. 

But never more to thee shall summer bring 

Her many joys of song, and sky, and bloom ; 
The wild-bee with young roses wantoning 

Shall hum unheeded o'er thy silent tomb ; 
No more shalt thou inhale the sweet perfume 

The zephyr bears away from ravished flowers ; 
No more the song of birds shall chase the gloom 

That sometimes crossed thee in tliy weary hours ; 
Thy ear is cold and deaf to all their sweetest powers. 

For thou hast left the bright and lovely earth — 

Left in the spring-time of thy manhood's years, 
Ere we who loved thee knew one-half thy worth, 

Which now undimmed and beautiful appears. 
Ah I when thy doom was nigh, with anxious fears 

We watched beside thee as the fever came 
Breathing its death-blast in thy shrinking ears, 

And laying on thy brow its hand of flame 
Till thy brain shrived, and thy heart lay still and tame. 



133 

And then we bore thee to thy last, long home, 

Then sought our own : but. Ah ! how changed the 
place ! 
For days and weeks strange thoughts would o'er us- 
come : 

We looked to see thy dear, familiar face 
Still looking as it did in other days 

Beside our hearth where thou wert wont to keep. 
That spot our eyes unconsciously would trace, 

And as the sad truth o'er our hearts would creep, 
We could but look into each others' face and weep. 

Sleep on, dear Brother ! calm and sweetly sleep ; 

A few short days and I who mourn thee now 
Shall hear the plashing of Lake Huron's deep 

Surging its waves against the vessel's prow ; 
Soon Michigan's blue waters shall I plow. 

Where lies my chosen home, and it may be 
I never at thy grave again may bow. 

For ere the last day of this year shall flee, 
I, too, may lie as low, as still, as calm as thee I 



THE DEAD. 

The dead I the calm, the holy, 

How peacefully they rest, 
In their narrow homes laid lowly 

With a clod upon each breast I 

In the valleys and the ocean, 

On the desert and the hill ; 
Every where the great departed 

Earth's teeming bosom fill. 

There, bone by bone they 're mouldering 

The fiat to obey — 
" Dust thou art, to dust returnest 

Till the heavens pass away." 

Yes, I know the forms 1 cherished 

Have faded long ago, 
Mingled with the silent valley 

Whereto I saw them go ; 



THE DEAD. 135 

But the soul, the spark undying 

That sanctified the clod, 
Where goes it when the body 

Is laid beneath the sod ? 

Sweet visions hover Vound me 
When the twilight hour comes on, 

Of the early lost and lovely 
Who to the grave have gone. 

For they We with me, they 're about me 

In every path I tread, 
Speaking to me as they used to, 

The unforgotten dead. 

Tell me not 'tis mere illusion. 

The voices that I hear : 
Not afar in some dim region 

Are the ones I've lost, but here ! 

Here, in the homes they loved so 

When they in flesh were bound ; 
Where the hearts that love them gather, 
There, too, may they be found. 



AN INYITATION. 

Singing runs a little brook 

By a green and mossy nook ; 

Green above a broad-armed tree 

Spreads liis leafy canopy. 

Pleasant 'tis in summer time, 

When the earth is in her prime, 

When birds, and beasts, and trees, and flowers, 

Wanton in the golden hours, 

On that mossy bank to lie, 

Looking at the glowing sky. 

Listening to the tinkling bells 

Of white sheep in distant dells, 

To the birds that sing among 

The green leaves a merry song. 

Full of joy it is to me 

All these things to hear and see — 

Hither ! hither hasten all 

Who are numbered in my call. 

He who smarteth with the pain 
Of a heart that loves in vain ; 



AN INVITATION. 137 

He wlio mourns a friend estranged, 
Whom a little word liatli changed, 
Spoken in a pettish mood 
When some trifle vexed the blood ; 
He who weeps a dear one flown 
To the shadowy world unknown ; 
He whose youthful dream of fame 

Hath been sadly, rudely broken 
By the words of scorn and shame 

Which some envious tongue hath spoken ; 
He whom lean-eyed poverty 
Gnaweth, ah ! incessantly. 
With a fang so icy cold 
That his spirit groweth old 
Ere the silver mark of years 
Shines amidst his youthful hairs ; 
He who seeking after pleasure 

'Midst the scenes of idle mirth. 
Finds at last the long-sought treasure 

Is not to be found on earth, 
And, too late, alas ! in tears 
Grieveth for his misspent years ; 
All who weep, and all who sigh, 
Knowing or not knowing why ; 

Hither ! hither ! and with me 

Lie beneath the greenwood tree. 
We will dream a pleasant dream 



138 AN INVITATION. 

Of a world where all things seem 
More enduring and more fair 
Than on this earth ever were ; 
We will weave it into rhyme, 

In a measure sweet and new, 
To the which our hearts keep chime, 

Pleased as if it all were true. 
We will con the pleasant theme 
Till we wist not 'tis a dream, m, 
But believing it all real, 
Suck the sweets of our ideal, 
And forget, at least awhile, 
All earth's sorrow, pain and trial. 



LOU. 

I KNOW not \Yhetlier I love lier, 

That Lou with the dainty hand ; 
But I know she's the lovliest maiden 

To be found in all the land ; 
The very loveliest maiden 

That ever the sun did see ; 
The queen of the queens of Beauty, 

The star of the world is she. 



I seem to hear sounds from Heaven, 

When trippingly to and fro 
Over the ivory key-board 

Her little white fingers go ; 
For her voice has a tone diviner 

To me than Apollo's lute ; 
It stirreth my heart like a trumpet, 

Yet soft 'tis and clear as a flute. 



Her eyes are twin planets of beauty, 
So large and so full of light ; 

When they suddenly shine upon me, 
I feel that ray cheeks grow white ; 



140 LOU. 

Grow white as would any coward's 

In presence of his chief fear, 
And my heart standeth still for a moment, 

Then bounds like a startled deer. 

Last night as I turned o'er her music. 

It chanced that her fingers touched mine, 
And like lightning at once through my being 

Ran a shiver and tremor divine : 
I slept not all night for caressing 

The hand that her fingers had blest, 
Yet I rose just as buoyant this morning 

As if I'd had plenty of rest. 

Be still, oh, my heart ! Is she coming 

That thou throbbest and tremblest so ? 
I hear not the soimd of her footsteps. 

But yet she is coming, I knov/ : 
I know by this tumult and quiver. 

By the light that springs up to my eye — 
She is coming, my darling ! my peerless ! 

I must tell her I love her, or die. 



THE PAIilETTO REGBIENT AT CHERUBUSCO. 

Through our army's tented city on Cherubusco's plain, 

Was heard the battle trumpet breathing out its stirring 
strain ; 

The drum's deep roll, the fife's shrill call, spoke of the 
coming foe, 

The vaunted flower and chivalry of treacherous Mex- 
ico. 

We saw them in their pride drawn out, a long and 
glittering line, 

And their lances and their banners in the morning sun- 
light shine ; 

We knew that they could number full five warriors to 
our one, 

But we did not fear the fearful odds, nor wish the fight 
to shun ; 

We remembered Cerro Gordo, Buena Vista, Monte- 
rey, 

Where our brothers fought and conquered in as une- 
qual fray. 



142 THE PALMETTO REGIMENT 

And we panted for the order that should bid otrr liiuB 

move on, 
To prove the ancient valor of Carolina's sons. 

Soon the tliunder of the cannon shook the pillars of 

the sky 
And the misty air grew vibrant with the peals of mus- 
ketry ; 
Up rose our gallant Colonel from the sick-bed where he 

laid, 
In vain they tried to keep him back — ^he would not 

have it said 
That the sons of Carolina to the battle-field had gone 
And he, though sick and fainting, was not there to lead 

them on. 
Hurrah ! the word is given, and ours the glorious post 
To be foremost where the battle must be either won or 

lost! 
Oh ! it was a goodly sight when the deep ravine we 

crossed. 
And saw the foe before us there, a strong and warlike 

host : 
And with a wild excitement our hearts beat high and 

fast 
When the word to fire upon them along our line was 



AT CHERUBUSCO. 143 

As before the reaper's sickle falls the full and ripened 

grain, 
So fell the foeman's ranks before our shower of leaden 

rain ; 
We saw them falling thickly down, the dying and the 

dead ; 
Scarce a moment ere we conquered — they surrendered 

or they fled. 

Again the word was — Forward ! and our serried line 

pressed on, 
For the fight, though going bravely, was far from being 

Avon. 
Once more we met the foe, and in more terrible array ; 
And now came on the thickest and the deadliest of the 

fray. 
The red mouths of the cannon, like the unstopped jaws 

of Hell, 
Belched death across our pathway in a shower of shot 

and shell ; 
And the thousand-throated musketry shook heaven with 

their peal. 
And spread bullets broadcast 'mongst us that made our 

columns reel ; 
Fell our ColacLeLtKen^sor^ js'^cuiEded^ but aoonJedus as 

before. 
Till a second time struck down, and, alas ! to rise no 

more. 



144 THE PALMETTO REGIMENT 

He fell, the gallant Butler, a hero as true and tried 
As ever in the battle for his country's glory died. 
Then ^Dickinson was wounded and carried from the 

field, 
But still our march was onward, where the deadliest 

volleys pealed ; 
Williams fell to rise no more, and Clark, the brave and 

good, 
Stricken with a fearful wound, fell weltering in his 

blood ; 
Old Edgefield's colors bearing through the battle's 

fiercest tide, 
The young and gallant Adams at the post of glory died. 
He fell, the young and valiant, as a soldier loves to do, 
With his good sword in his hand and his face towards 

the foe — 
With his comrades' shout to cheer him as the foe began 

to fly: 
Though 'twas sad to die so young, it was glorious so to 

die. 

though the fire was fierce and deadly, and our com- 
rades fell in blood, 

It nerved our hearts to see how brave our gallant lead- 
ers stood ; 

How the bold, intrepid Gladden, and De Saussure, 
good and true, 



AT CHERUBUSCO. 115 

Led us forward still imdaimted where the bullets thick- 
est flew ; 

How Blanding and Moragne, Sumter, Marshall, Duno- 
vaiit, 

Moffat, Walker, and bold Cantey bore the battle's hot- 
test brunt. 

Hurrah ! the foe is quailing ! To the charge, Palmet- 
tos ! On! 

They cannot stand the touch of steel — ^Hurrah ! the 
field is won. 

'Twas won — but at a fearful cost — for looking o'er the 
slain, 

One half our little band lay dead or wounded on the 
plain ; 

But though mourning for our brothers fallen, our hearts 
were yet elate, 

For well we had upheld the ancient glory of our State. 

With the fields of Palo- Alto, Buena Yista, Monterey, 

And Cerro Gordo they shall number Cherubusco's well- 
fought fray ; 

And when they name that glorious field full proudly we 
may say 

How the sons of Carolina bore themselves upon that 
day. 

7 



A WAIL FOR THE DEAD. 

WKITTEN DURING THE FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF COLS. BUTLER 
AND DICKINSON. 

Haek ! tlie muffled drums are rolling, 

The deep-moutlied bell is tolling 
With measured chime and slow ; 

The minute-guns boom mournfully — 

The trumpet's stirring battle cry- 
Is changed to a wail of woe ; 

For two warriors in their prime 
Have laid them down to die 

In that most glorious time — 
The hoar of victory. 

On Cherubusco's well-fought field, 
Where Carolina's sons upheld 

Their proud State's glorious name — , 
There, ^nidst the shock of battle strife. 
They gave up all of earthly life, 

And won immortal fame. 



A WAIL FOR THE DEAD. 147 

They died as leaders love to die, 

With their soldiers' shout, " The foe I they fly !" 

Rino-ina: in their dying ears. 
It was a good field nobly fought, 
But dearly was the victory bought 

At cost of lives like theirs. 
Their earthly forms have come 

From the field whereon they fell, 
To sleep their last, long sleep 

In the land they loved so well. 
Come ! with banners lowly streaming, 
With armor brightly gleaming. 

All the pomp of martial woe ; 
Bear them sadly on and slowly, 
With solemn rites, and holy. 

To the graves whereto they go. 
A soldier's glorious death they died 

On that battle-field afar ; 
Therefore tis meet we give to them 

A soldier's sepulcher. 
And we'll raise for them a monument 

Whose marble page shall tell 
How truly for their land they lived, 

How for her they nobly fell ; 
And in the years to come 

When a battle's to be won, 
Carolina's sons for watchwords 

Shall crv Butler ! Dickinson ! 



TO ROSALIE ffl IIEAVEIST. 

The light that made our home all smishine, and 

That threw a golden halo 'round our hearth, 
Is dimmed forever : and we, stricken band. 

Mourn for a glory vanished from the earth. 
Beautiful Rosalie ! like a stray beam 

That o'er our path a moment's gladness threw — 
So hast thou vanished — or as some sweet dream 

That was too fall of pleasure to be true. 
Thou mov'dst among us like a being strayed 

From some diviner planet, and Avhosc spirit 
Was ever seeking through our earth's dim shade 

The brighter world that it did once inhabit. 
Noiv that remembered and long-so ught-for sphere 

Is fomid again by thee, and thou art blest : 
But ive whose hearts were bound to thee when here, 

Are left alone, all desolate and distressed. 
Oh! had we taken thought we might have known 

Thou wert for earth too brightly beautiful ; 
But with thee at our side we felt, alone, 

A dreamy sense of happiness ; a full 



TO ROSALIE IN HEAVEN. 149 

Overflowing measure of surpassing bliss, 

Serene and holy as the blessed feel 
In the companionship of angels. This 

Left in our souls no room for thoughts of ill. 
Thou art gone from us, and we weep, but not for thee ; 

Why should we mourn that thou we loved so 
Art happier where thou art than earth or we 

Could make thee ? For ourselves our tears do flow. 
Ours is the loss — ^loss passing all repair — 

Thine is the gain — gain beggaring earthly thought I 
Yes, in our mourning for the loss we bear. 

This blessed comfort to our hearts is brought, 
That it is luell with thee. Yes, Rosalie, 

If ever sinless spirit for awhile 
Walked in the garments of mortality, 

Then thou wert one. None ever saw thy smile, 
(Methinks I see it on thy cold cheeks now,) 

Lovely as those they wear in Paradise, 
Or looked upon thy halo-circled brow, 

Or in the depths of thy angelic eyes, 
Or heard thy voice's low-toned melody, 

But felt thou wert not earth's. An influence divine, 
A breathing from the heavens encircled thee. 

That ganctified each look and tone of thine. 
Yes, with thee it is well, beloved one ! 

Thy saintly brow, on which ne'er sat a frown, 
Now that thy short probation here is done, 



150 TO ROSALIE IN HEAVEN. 

Beams radiantly beneatli a starry crown. 
And tliy sweet voice, whose low melodious tone 

Was never marred by harsh or unkind word, 
A thousand times more sweet and heavenly grown, 

Chimes to thy seraph harp in sweet accord. 
Oh ! if, as many think, and we believe. 

The souls of those we've loved and lost on earth 
Do sometimes heaven's thrones and glories leave, 

To visit for a time their native hearth 
And hold a sweet communion with our spirits, 

Bringing us foretastes of the wondrous bliss 
Which they enjoy, and which we shall inherit 

In that blest realm when we have passed from this : 
Then, Rosalie, thou'lt sometimes come to us. 

In dreams that make a holy time of night — 
In reveries when the soul feels tremulous. 

It knows not wherefore, with supreme delight ; 
Or, better far, when dazzling sins invite. 

The spirit hears — what ears of flesh ne'er hear — 
A low, clear tone whose whispered word hath might 

To warn the soul of danger lurking near. 
And most of all thou wilt be with us then. 

When thoughts of Heaven, and of the life to be, 
Engage our souls ; for that exalted thejjie 

Will bring us nearer God, and nearer thee. 



SONG OF THE SPIRIT. 

Rejoice ! IVe passed the somber gate of death, 
The marble confines of the grave I've riven : 

Up ! up, triumphant on tlie wings of faith 
IVe scaled the angel-guarded walls of heaven. 

IVe seen the glories of that wondrous sphere ; 

Been thrilled to ecstacy with one wild burst 
Of seraph minstrelsy, and at the clear 

Fount of eternal youth have quenched my thirst. 

I'm free — my task is done, my trial o'er ; 

No more shall earth my vaulting soul confine j 
But freely on my new-found wings I'll soar 

Through earth and heaven — infinity is mine. 

No more with mystery my mind is vailed ; 

Off from my sight the earthly screen is rent ; 
With doubt no more my ardent soul is chilled. 

But all lies bare without impediment. 



152 SONG OF THE SPIRIT. 

The stars sliall be my playmates — with a thought 
From orb to orb 111 speed my course along ; 

Space, time, and distance have become as nought — 
The universe to spirits doth belong. 

From world to shining world I'll wing my way, 
And watch the planets as they wing their flight ; 

With the bright comet's locks of gold 111 play 
And crown my forehead with his glittering light. 

Down through the fretted caverns of the sea' 
I'll glide, and view the treasures there untold — 

Gems that would shame the wealth of royalty, 
Pearls, rubies, emeralds, massive bars of gold. 

Nor these alone, but other things I'll scan ; 

I'll watch the birth-place of the isles, and see 
How grain by grain the little artisan 

Builds up the green oases of the sea. 

And sometimes o'er the world I've left I'll wing, 
And hover lingering o'er the hallowed spot, 

Where in its modest virtue slumbering 
Beneath the hills, peeps out my father's cot. 

I'll pass i^\e threshold, and the vacant seat 
Shall hold the spirit of the absent one, 

Blessing, unseen, the dear-loved band that meet 
Around the hearth when toils of dav are done. 



SONG OP THE SPIRIT. 153 

Unseen, my spirit-influence sliall turn 

Their tlioughts, and fix them other days^upon, 

And they shall speak as those who still must mourn, 
With chastened sorrow, for the lost and gone. 

O'er many a loved and well-remembered scene. 
Haunts where in life my feet were wont to tread, 

My airy form shall hover all unseen. 

And o'er the place a spirit's blessing shed. 

When 'neath the shade of night the world lies hid, 
And eyes of friends in slumber's chains are bound, 

My wing shall fan the weary sleeper's lid, 
And visions of the lost shall float around, 

Bidding again the scenes of other years 

Out from their dusty treasure-house to spring, 

With all their store of hallowed hopes and fears, 
That'tendril-like around the affections cling. 

And I will watcli by them, Avhen weak and low, 
Upon the bed of death they lingering lie ; 

And when the chain is riven— passed toil and woe, 
I'll teach the new-born spirit how to fly 

Up to the regions of eternal bliss ; 

Twin spirits, side by side, and hand-in-hand, 
We'll wing our flight to brighter shores than this, 

And fold our phiion? in " the Bettor Land." 



ON THE DEATH OF MY DAUGHTER, 

KILLED BY FALLING FROM A CHAIR. 

How still and pale thou'rt lying now, my beautiful, my 

own. 
Death's fearful coldness on thy brow, thy dark eyes^ 

brightness flown ; 
Oh I who that saw thee at thy play a few short hours 

gone by, 
Had thought thy sprightly limbs to-day so motionless 

would lie ? 

Even now scarce from thy lips and cheeks their rosy 

bloom hath fled ; 
Thou loo¥st as if thou did'st but sleep, yet, yet they say 

thou'rt — dead ! 
Dead ? dead ? I will not trust the tongue that speaks 

so much amiss : 
So fair ! so beautiful ! so young ! death does not look 

like this ! 

If thou, day after day, had'st lain sickened, and weak, 
and pale, 



ON THE DEATH OF MY DAUGHTER. 155 

Wearing away with ceaseless pain, I might believe the 

tale : 
•But thou hast felt no feverish smart by sharp diseases 

bred : 
I see no mark of death's cold dart. No ! no ! thou art 

not dead. 

Where is the thin and shrunken limb ? the ghastly lip 

and cheek : 
The shrunken eye — its light grown dim — of death's 

eclipse that speak ? 
Thou sleep'st — I'll smoothe thy locks of gold around 

thy angel head : 
Oh ! God ! thou art so icy cold ! my child ! my child I 

thou'rt dead! 

My love, my wife ! See, where she lies ! our yoimgest, 

loveliest, 
No life-light in her soft, dark eyes, no heart-throb in 

her breast : 
She 's dead — alas ! could we have thought when we 

this day arose 
That unto us death would have brought this sorrow 

ere its close ? 

Father ! it is a bitter pang for frail, weak hearts to 

bear. 
Forgive us if we can't return Thv loan without a tear ; 



156 ON THE DEATH OF MY DAUGHTftn. 

She was with loveliness so fraught, so full of joy to us, 
Our human hearts must needs cry out to see her lying 
thus. 

But stricken, sad, and sorrowing, there yet amidst our 
grief 

Are still a thousand thoughts can bring our wounded 
hearts relief ; 

This one alone our souls should cheer : to. us the boon 
was given 

Here in a sinful world to rear one angel soul for Hea- 
ven. 



THE SPIRIT-BIRD, 

[The subjoined was suggoeted by the following incident. While a 
mother was watching the cradle in which her infant was sleeping, a bird 
entered at the open window, and alighting on the pillow, sang a few 
^notes in the baby's ear ; then circling a few times around the mother's 
^lead, flew out of the window, and was seen no more. 

The bird — the mother says — was of a kind she never saw before nor 
sJ,\ce, and remarkably beautiful ; its wings, particularly, being of a daz- 
zU ig brightness. The child, who had heretofore been very healthy, im- 
me\Uately sickened, and in two or three days died. 

However foolish this idea may appear to others, it would be hard to 
convince the mother that the bird she saw was a native of this earth.] 

Whence comest thou, bird ? 
Bird of the dazzling and unknown wing ; 
Thou of the song which no ear hath heard 

A bird of .our greenwood sing ? 

From Araby the blest ? 
Where the odors from gardens of flowers in bloom 
Loaded each breeze that rocked thy nest 

With an exquisite perfume ? 

Or fi'om some sweet isle 
That lieth afar in the southern sea, 
Lovely and pure as an infant's smile 

Ere earth stains its purity ? 



i58 THE SPIRIT-BIRD. 

An isle where the sunlight gleams, 
Fairer and purer than in our clime, 
On groves, and meadows, and silvery streams 
That never have witnessed crime ? 

Where man hath never been 
To sully the air with his sinful breath ; 
Where never was sorrow, nor tears, nor pain ; 
Where never yet was death ? 

No ! thou comest from none of these : 
But from some rank swamp where noxious weeds 
Infect with their poison the sweltering breeze ; 

Where the deadly serpent breeds ; 

Where the very air is fraught 
With death to all save to deadly things : 
There wert thou nursed, and thence hast brought 

Its poison upon thy wings. 

For thou camest where an infant lay, 
Hovered awhile 'round his innocent head, 
Breathed on him, chirruped, and passed away — 

Next eveninehe was dead ! 



■&- 



Grief thou dost ever bring. 
Sighs and moans in thy train are heard : 
Woe unto them who shall hear thee sing, 

Oh, fair but fatal bird ! 



REPLY OF THE SPIRIT-BIRD. 

Oh ! wondrous fair is Araby, 

And sweet are the odors lier bowers give forth ; 
And many an isle gems the deep blue sea 

Unknown to the rest of earth : 

And, since the curse on Eden fell, 

Many a spot on earth there is 
Where loathsome and deadly creatures dwell ; 

But I come from none of these. 

There 's a land which never did man behold, 
But that every mortal one day sliall see, 

Whose splendor surpasses a thousand-fold 
The beauties of wonderful Araby : 

There flowers more fair than the buds of earth 
Are ever in blossom, yet never decay ; 

And there that sanctified stream has birth 
Whose waters can wash every sin away. 



160 REPLY OE THE SPIRIT-BIRD. 

And, Oh ! the music of that blest land 
That gushes in one never-ceasing song, 

As the golden harps of the seraph band 
Vibrate to the touch of the choral throns:. 

There never was sorrow, nor crime nor pain ; 
There never was death, nor ever shall be ; 
For the breath of God is the air of that land, 
And a breath of that air's immortality. 

There the sun shines not, yet it never is night, 
But day, brighter day than the earth hath e're known, 

Beams, ever beams in a broad sheet of light 
From the diamond steps of Jehovah's throne. 

A seraph there was in that realm above 

Who had lost one string from his golden lyre ; 

'Twas the string whose tone praised a mother's love, 
And he was banished the serapli choir. 

Exiled he came as a little child, 
And nestled awhile upon woman's breast, 

Till he learned from the being that o'er him smiled, 
How holy a mother's love was, and blest. 

I came to tell him he was forgiven : 

To tell him his harp had regained its string ; 

And that the angelic host of Heaven 
Was waiting his welcome bnok to sing. 



REPLY OF THE SPIRIT-BIRD. 161 

Saw 3'e not how the sleeping infant smiled, 
When I sang in his ear that seraph-strain ? 

He knew that no longer was he exiled 
But that heaven was open to him again. 

Then say not that sorrow and tears I bring, 
And pain unto those who my voice have heard ; 

Rather, blessed are they who shall hear me sing — 
Thrice blest are the called of the Spirit-Bird. 



BETTER, MUCH BETTER. 

Our darling hath been lying very low, 
Yery low for weeks and better ; 

But a great change took place an hour ago : 
She 's better now — much better. 

The dreadful fever is all vanished 

So sorely that beset her ; 
She lies no longer languishing abed ; 

She 's better now — much better. 

And as she rose up from her long sick bed, 

God's loving angels met her ; 
They called her dearest sister, 
And on cheek and mouth they kissed her : 

Yes, she 's better now — ^much better. 

Much better ! yes ! for she is living now 

Where never ill shall fret her ; 
Our minds consent unto the truth, they know 

She 's better now — mucli better. 



BETTER, MUCH BETTER. 163 

But, all ! our hearts are blind, they can not see 

Beyond that coffined litter ; 
'Tis useless saying to their agony, 

She 's better now — much better. 

They can't believe. To them that cold, still form, 

In its white grave-clothes bound, 
Is her : and, Oh ! to lay her with the coffin worm 

Down in the cold, cold ground. 

Where we shall never, never see her more, 

Shall never hear her speak. 
Is terrible : this makes them cry, " Eestore 

Her to us, or we break.'' 

Oh for more faith to look beyond the vail, 

And see where God hath set her 
Among his loved ones, that our hearts may feel 

She 's better now — much better. 



A RHYME OF THE CITY. 

PART I. 

Not confined to realms celestial 

Is the blessed angel band ; 
But in mortal vesture shrouded 

Thousands throng our lower land. 
Some in silks and laces shinino% 

Ride along th' adoring street, 
Others tread the flinty pavement 

With their weary, shoeless feet ; 
And in highways, and in byways, 

All unseen by earthly eye, 
Throng the ransomed, the exalted. 

Who have put the mortal by. 
Yes, thank God that they are with us, 

Both the unseen and the seen, 
They who yet in flesh are hidden, 

And they, too, who once have been. 

As I wandered through the city 

On a bitter winter's day, 
I saw a carriage waiting 



A RHYME OP THE CITY. 165 

By the side-walk in Broadway ; 
And near by it sat a maiden 

On the curb-stone in the street, 
Scarce a garment on her body, 

Scarce a shoe upon her feet ; 
And a little boy beside her 

Laid his head upon her knee, 
Whilst with cold, half-frozen fingers 

She his wounds bound tenderly. 

Soon there came a lovely lady. 

Fair and beautiful to see, 
Clad in silks, and decked in jewels, 

And in costly furs was she. 
As she stepped toward her carriage 

She turned and saw the maid 
Sitting near-by on the curb-stone, 

And drew near to her, and said : 

*' What is 't ails your little brother ?" 

Oh ! the music of her voice. 
How my heart leaped up to hear it 

Sounding 'midst the city's noise. 
" What is 't ails your little brother ?" 

Said she, stooping by the maid. 
In a voice as low and gentle 

As her own, the maiden said : 
''A heedless man in passing 



166 A RHYME OF THE CITY. 

Threw the child out in the street, 
Little thinking, little caring 

That he fell beneath the feet, 
'Neath the iron feet of horses 

Driven hurriedly along. 
He never had 'scaped killing 

Amidst the sightless throng : 
But God's angels saw his danger, 

And they turned the hoofs aside, 
Else instead of these slight bruises 

The little child had died." 

Then she looked up at the lady. 

Who was thrilled with pleased surprise, 
For she saw a sister angel 

Looking from the maiden's eyes. 
Then the white hand of the lady 

In the maiden's I saw laid. 
" I am glad his hurts are trifling ; 

And I pray take this," she said, 
"And then tell me where to find you 

So that I may come and see 
How and wherein I can help you." 

*' Lady I've no home," said she. 
" Where this little boy may shelter 

He can tell you, I dare say : 
But for me I have none, lady ; 



A RHYME OF THE CITY. 167 

That I had I left to-day, 
Never more to enter in it. 

No, far rather would I lie 
Starving, shivering on the pavement, 

Underneath this freezing sky." 

" Shelterless ! alas ! poor maiden, 

Pitiful indeed 's your case. 
And this boy is not your brother ? 

No, T see not by his face." 

It was one of those vile faces 

Scarcely human in their looks, 
To be found in every city, 

Lurking in its lowest nooks : 
Faces that in childhood even 

Wear no look of childish times ; 
But in infancy are pregnant 

With their coming manhood's crimes. 
There are ghastly, brutal faces, 

Bred where want and famine dwell : 
But the faces vice engenders, 

xVre daguerreotypes from Hell. 
There are some who think the devil 

One day will become a saint ; 
'Tis a faith I love to cherish. 

But, ah me, it grovreth faint 
When I meet those Hell-stamped faces ; 



168 A RHYME OF THE CITY. 

And I ask, can e'en God's grace 
Ever turn into an angel's 
Such a foul, revolting face? 

One such 'twas the lady looked on, 
And it moved her gentle heart 

With a feeling partly pity, 
Part dislike, and fear a part. 

" Take this, little boy," then said she, 
As her purse once more she drew, 

" Take it home unto your mother. 
Clothes and food 'twill buy for you." 

Clutching greedily the money, 
Which into his mouth ]ie tossed, 

Slunk the boy amongst the passers, 
And amidst the crowd was lost. 

"But for you, poor homeless maiden, 
Homeless you no more must be — 

Come ! my father dear must see you ; 
Come ! you must go home with me." 

In the carriage then togetlier 
Went the lady and the maid : 

Will the lovely lady ever 

Sorrow for thi? morninQ,''s deed ? 



A EHYME OF THE CITY. 169- 

Come and sec I the power is given 

Us to follow where they go. 
Come ! unseen we will be near them, 

And the future we will know. 



PART n. 



It is evening, and the gaslight, 

Mellowed by the ground-glass shade, 
Falls upon the lovely faces 

Of the lady and the maid, 
Talking lovingly together ; 

Seated in a pleasant room, 
Richly furnished, whose adornments 

Oets new beauty from their bloom. 

Many who had seen the maiden. 

Ragged, shoeless, and forlorn. 
Sitting shivering on the curb-stone 

On that bitter winter's morn, 
Would not know her should they see her 

Seated by the lady there, 
Clad in one of the same dresses 

That the lady used to wear. 
And right well the dress becomes her, 

And she suiteth well the dress, 
Each receiving from the other 

An increase of loveliness-. 
S 



170 A EHYME OF THE CITY. 

With them is the lady's father, 

Not yet old, though past life's prime, 
For his once dark hair shows tokens 

Of the silvering touch of Time ; 
But his face is one Time's finger 

Only touches to improve. 
One you can not keep from loving, 

'Tis itself so full of love. 
Ah ! the beauty of a maiden 

Is a joyful thing to see. 
And young manhood's rosy vigor 's 

Scarce less beautiful to me ; 
But an old man, venerable, 

Wlio has grown through sixty years 
Of earth's sorrows and temptations 

Liker to the Heaven he nears, 
Is a sight that moves my spirit 

As no other earthly can ; 
Honor, reverence, and affection, 

Fill my soul for sucli a man. 

Something tender says the lady 
To the maid, whose moistened eyes 

Show her grateful heart outlooking 
Through them as she thus replies : 

"Ah, dear Eva — since you bid me 
Thus to call vou — ^can I ever 



A RHYME OF THE CITY. 171 

Pay you for tlie loving kindness 
Shown to mc tliis clay ? No, never I 

Let me tell you now my story : 
It is right that you should know 

Whether I am one deserving - 
All the kindness you bestow. 

" Seven years since my father, mother, 

With myself and brothers three, 
Left our native land, dear England, 

For this country of the free. 
Far out on the western prairies, 

Where throughout the summer hours, 
Swaying to the south wind's breathings 

Heaves and falls a sea of flowers ; 
Where the breast of earth is teeming 

With unnumbered harvests, where 
God hath lavished choicer blessings 

Than the world holds otherwhere ; 
On the green banks of a river, 

Singing as it flows along 
'Tween the prairie grass and flowers 

Evermore the same sweet song : 
There my father built our cabin, 

Near the prairie border, and 
Soon his plows turned up the bosom 

Of that fair and fruitful land. 



172 A RHYME OF THE CITY. 

For a y(mr we were so happy ; 

For a year, and nearly two. 
One by one the dear home comforts 

Silently about us grew, 
Till our poor cot iii the forest 

Wore a look almost as dear 
As the old ancestral homestead 

Where we'd lived so many years. 
But, ah ! then the sorrow met us ; 

Fever laid its burning hand 
On our darling youngest brother. 

Tore him from our houseliold band 
And for four years that thereafter 

We continued there to dwell, 
Scarce a month was but its shadow 

Darkly on our threshold fell. 
One or other, father, mother. 

Brother Charles, or brother John, 
Felt its cruel burning fingers 

Laid their shivering frames upon. 

One by one my brothers perished ; 

Last of all my father died : 
Weakened, sickened, broken-hearted, 

Kinless — why should we abide 
Longer in a land, though lovely, 

Which no claim on us possessed 



A RHYME OF THE CITY. 173 

Save that those we loved so dearly 

Slept their last sleep in its breast ? 
So we gathered up the remnant 

Of our all that did remain ; 
Turned our sorrowing faces eastward 

To our English home again. 
But the seeds of death were planted 

In my mother's stricken frame, 
So that when we reached this city 

Once more sickened she became. 
Weeks and months passed on, and mother 

Weaker grew each coming day, 
Till at last God in his mercy 

Took her from all pain away. 

" Scarcely was my mother's coffin 

Hid beneath the grave-yard clay, 
When the woman where we boarded 

Called upon me for her pay. 
All I had of money, trinkets, 

Would not pay the claim she brought; 
Which I think by far exceeded 

What in equity it ought. 

" Then that woman — she a mother 

Having daughters — ^liow could she 
Dare to make the vile proposal 
8* 



174 A RHYME OF THE CITY. 

Which she did this morn to me ? 
What I said to her in answer 

I can not remember now, 
But her face grew black with passion, 

Clenched her teeth and knit her brow. 
All I had she then took from me. 

Even to the clothes I wore ; 
Ragged as this morn you met' me, 

Then she turned me from her door. - 
Glad enough was I to leave it, 

For I would by far prefer 
Freezing 'neath the skies of winter 

To living 'neath a roof with her." 

" You were right, dear May, far better 
Houseless than in such a home : 

But when wandering through the city, 
Feared you not what fate might come ?" 

" No, I only feared a moment 
That she would not let me go ; 

Feared that she would find some pretext 
To detain and work me woo. 

" Cold and hunger ! they were little, 

They were easier to be borne, 
Than to be for countless ages 



A RHYME OF THE CITY. 1*75 

Object of my own self scorn. 
But I did not fear to perish, 

Sometliing to me seemed to say, 
* Fear not, daughter, we are with you, 

God will care for you to-day.' " 

" Have you any kindred, Mary ? 
Any on this side the sea ?" 

" None, unless my mother's cousin 
Somewhere in this land may be." 

" Mother's cousin," said the old man, 
" Do you recollect his name ?" 

" Yes, I've often heard my mother 
Speak of him — 'tis Robert Graham." 

" Robert Graham ! Lord of Mercy ! 
And your mother's name and homo ?" 

" She was Mary Clark of Horsely, 
Married William Wynne of Froome." 

Stood the old man looking upward 

With clasped hands and streaming eyes, 

Whilst the lady and tlic maiden 
Looked at him in mute surprise. 



17G A EHYME OF THE CITY. 

" Lord ! thy ways are Ml of wonder I 
None shall fail who trust in Thee ! 

Blessed be Tliy name forever 
For this joy Thou givest me f 

" Come and kiss me, both my children I 

'Tis a happy day to-day ; 
Eva, you will love your cousin : 

Love your new-found cousin May ! 
Look not at me in such wonder, 

Thinking surely I am wild ; 
Eva, darling, May ^s your cousin ; 

She 's my cousin Marv's child.'' 



THE FINDING OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 

THE PREPARATION. 

Eight summers had made harvests in the land, 

Eight winters froze new icebergs at the poles, 
Since good Sir John, with two stout ships well manned, 

Sailed from the English coast. Alas I poor souls 1 
Through all the years no word nor sign came back 

To tell the wives and mothers of those men 
They lived. New ships in search upon their track 

Had pierced the icy North, and safe again 
Returned, but brought no tidings of the crew : 
So hope died out in all except a few 
Heroic souls who still, in spite of hope, hoped on ; 
And one of them was he who went to seek Sir John. 

He was no kin of that brave mariner. 

Nor any of his men : he never saw 
Their faces for whose sake he went to dare 
The perils of the sea, the piercing air. 

The cold, cold ice that never knew a thaw. 
No kin l)y blood ; but by those high resolves 



178 THE FINDING OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 

And generous impulses tliat make a life 
Heroic, he was brother to Sir John, 
Brother to all great souls that ever lived. 

Surrounded by the comforts of his home, 
He seemed to hear the north wind as it passed 
Grow vocable, and syllable his name : 
The voices of the crews that called to him 
From regions of eternal winter, where 
The day and night alternate once a year : 
To hear, or seem to hear, a cry for help 
From men imprisoned in the thick-ribbed ice. 
His generous heart answered the plaintive cry 
With eager throbs to hurry to the quest ; 
And happily he found among the band 
Of merchant princes of our traffic land 
One whose large heart was partner to his own, 
A royal lieart that had more kingly grown 
With his increasing wealth. Ah me, too oft 
The gold that fills the purse out day by day, 
In filling it doth empty out the heart 
Of every generous feeling — richer far 
Than all the gold these latter years have won 
From California and the Southern Seas — 
Till only a poor withered husk remains. 
This princely merchant now a second time 
Gave for the quest a vessel stout and strong. 



THE FINDIXa OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 179 

And in the native land of good Sir John 

Sojourned a banker, noted for his wealth, 

But better noted for his charities. 

A man by Fortune's choicest favors blest, 

And who deserved tlie choicest she could give — 

He with the amplest stores of every kind 

Furnished the bark the princely merchant gave : 

And so my hero with a little crew 

Of gallant souls set sail to seek Sir John. 

Oh ! if that power whose heaven-born influence 

Infuses into song some portions of 

Its own triumphant immortality, 

Will breathe upon my soul and guide my pen, 

The names of Grinnell, Peabody and Kane 

I will embalm in amber of my verse — 

Precious memorials to the latest age 

Of good that flourished in these days of ours. 



THE SEARCH. 

Weeks have gone by while steadily due north 
Their little vessel cleaves her perilous way 
Through fogs, and mists, and fields of floating ice 
Whose jagged shores oft chafe her oaken sides. 
Far as the eye can see on every hand 
Sky-pierchig icebergs lift tlicir gloaming fronts, 



180 THE FINDING OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 

And all about tlicm is a dreary waste 

Of fast congealing waters. 

Cold ! cold ! how bitter cold it grows ! The shrouds, 

And all the lower rigging have grown stiff 

With frozen spray, and long briglit icicles 

Hang from the bow and bulwarks, where 

The maddened waves, leaping to board the ship, 

Have by the bitter air been seized and turned 

To solid chrysolite. Slowly they sail, 

Alone upon a solitary sea ; 

No sign of life is round them anywhere. 

Nor in the air, nor in the sea beneath 

Is there a living creature but themselves. 

The green shores of their native land and all 

The habitable world lie far astern. 

Night after night the helmsman at the wheel 

Beholds the north star climbing up the heavens 

Until it stands above tlie mainmast top. 

Now shrink the days, and the retreating sun 
Flies southward from the pestilential breath 
Of old chaotic Night, who from the North 
Comes down with all his savage retinue, 
With glittering spears, and swords of adamant, 
And winds more deadly than the red Simoon 
That strews the wide Sahara with the bones 
Of slauofhtered caravans. 



THE FINDING OP SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 18T 

Slowly tlicy sail 
'Midst perils manifold from bergs and floes 
And sunken fields of ice. All day and night 
They hear the sullen roaring of the Pack 
That comes to crush them in its icy jaws. 
The salt sea stiffens 'neath the monster's feet, 
And billows turn to bars of adamant 
That stop tlieir further way. Fast for the night I 

While yet the daylight lingers in the South 
They labor to entrench themselves secure 
Against the foes that will beleaguer them 
Through all the long, long night. 

In the dear land that lies so far away, 
Day follows day, and night succeeds to night 
In usual alternation, until days 
Have grown to weeks, and weeks sped on to months : 
With them 'tis all one Night. 

Prisoned within 
The narrow confines of their ship they lie, 
While slow the tardy-footed hours creep on. 
Without is nothing but a wilderness 
Of death and darkness— black, blank, horrible. 
And rayless darkness. Through the dim obscure, 
Half seen, are nightmare shapes, and phantasms huge, 
Distorted monsters dead and motionless : 
Pale Sound among them lying frozen stiff. 



182 THE FINDING OP Slli JOHN FRANKLIN. 

The smothering hand of Silence pressed upon 

Her mouth. Darkness, and Death, and Silence, these 

Are their companions in that dreadful realm. 

It is as if the world had been struck back 

To nothingness, and they alone were left 

The sole survivors of the general wreck. 

Oh ! what a weary, weary life it is 
To live so pent up in a narrow space, 
Merely existing, merely employed 
In petty cares to keep the life-throb in their hearts, 
While the great purpose that has brought them here 
Advances not one jot toward completion. 
'Tis harder far for the heroic soul 
T' endure the dull inaction of a siege. 
Cooped safe within a city's sheltering walls, 
Than on the field beneath the open sky, 
'Midst smoke, and whistling balls, and clashing swords, 
And all the perils of the deadly fray 
To charge death home. 

And so it is with them. 
There is no foe that they can grapple with ; 
Their leaguers are impalpable as ghosts, 
And mortal sinews strike at them in vain. 
Darkness, and cold ! these they can keep at bay ; 
But there is one that will not be kept out ; 
A fellow foe — the advance-o:uard of death— 



THE FINDING OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 183 

Born of tlic darkness, tlic inaction, and 

The lack of healthy food. His poisoned darts 

Pierce their poor frames, and stretch them on their beds 

With swollen limbs, and all the aches and pains 

Of that fell monster, Scurvy. So the night, 

The long night slowly wears itself away. 

With such a joy as shipwrecked mariners. 
After long drifting in a leaky boat. 
Hail the faint line upon th^ horizon's verge 
That tells of wished-for land ; so these behold 
The first faint streak along the southern sky 
That speaks of coming Day. And soon it comes. 
A few more revolutions of tlie earth, 
And the faint streak hath broadened into Day, 
And then those poor, forlorn, dark-wearied men, 
Starving for light, come tottering from the ship. 
And gaze with dark-dilat]ted pupils at 
The dear old Sun. Sure this is not the place. 
The dismal world where they have pined so long I 
Yonder are gleaming sliafts of porphyry, 
Of ruby, opal, jasper, and white onyx : 
Majestic columns, plinths, and architraves, 
Wonderful ruins of some wondrous temple, 
Scattered confusedly afar and near : 
How beautiful the scene to their sick eyes I 
It is the blessed sunlio^ht makes it so. 



184 THE FmBING OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 

So day by day, as liiglier up the lieavens 
The sun ascends, their wonted strength returns, 
And now they can begin their wishcd-for work. 
After due preparation then with dogs and sleds 
Across the icy world they start in quest. 
Over the hummocks toilsomely they go, 
Over the glacier, over the winter snow 
The short-lived summer is^too weak to thaw ; 
A dreary drive they have — no land, no tree, 
No shrub, no flower, not e'en a blade of grass, 
Only a little moss that springs and grows 
The one sole green thing in that sheeted world. 

While the short summer lives they still pursue 
The search, but nowhere find they any trace 
Of those they seek. Sir Jolm and all his men 
Are gone. With hope-sick hearts my hero and 
His crew are fain to quit the hopeless search. 
And after once more suffering all the pains 
And horrors of the night, they turn away, 
And through such hardships as but few survive 
They win their way back to the living world 
With barely life. And so they did not find Sir John. 



THE FINDING OP SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 185 

THE FINDING. 

The thing we seek oft baffles all our skill 
Till, grown a-weaiy of the fruitless search, 
We give it o'er for lost, when all at once 
It stares us in the face, where least we think 
To find it. So it chanced in seeking for 
The health he lost in seeking for Sir John, 
My hero found Sir John whom then he did 
Not seek, and found immortal life besides : 
Come, I will tell you how he found Sir John. 

A fell disease, born of the long, long night, 
The bitter cold, and all the hardships that 
He suffered in that dreadful realm of ice, 
Preyed on his frame — weak frame at best — and so 
He journeyed where the gentle breezes fan 
The gorgeous foliage of a tropic clime 
In hopes to find the precious good he lost 
In regions more severe and inhospitable. 

It was a goodly land he sojourned in : 
The balmy air that stole in through the vines 
Of sweet-breathed jessamines that wreathed the porch, 
Came laden with the perfume of magnolias, 
Of orange blooms, and every odorous flower 
That nature lavishes with stintless hand 
Throuo'li all tlie fraeTant S^outh, To cloudless skies 



186 THE FINDING OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 

Tlie cocoa-palm reared up its slender shaft. • 
Crowned with its tuft of foliage and fruit ; 
The orange, the banana, and the fragrant pine, 
Offered their luscious pulp to eager lips ; 
And flashing in the sun-light as they flew 
Amid the foliage luxuriant, were birds 
Whose gorgeous plumage made them look as if 
The myriad-tinted flowers that everywhere 
So prodigal were scattered, suddenly 
Had been endowed with motion and took wing. 

Life ! life ! all life ! On earth, in air, and sea, 
Swarmed multitudes innumerable 
Of living creatures, shapes as multiform 
Almost as was their number : some so fair 
That one might wish tliat they, too, were immortal, 
And would glad our vision in the Better Land, 
xlnd wherefore shall they not ? What right have we 
To set a limit to God's love, and say 
In our proud egotism that we alone 
Of all His creatures shall survive the grave ? 
Though we enjoy the proud pre-eminence 
Of being self-conscious, I would fain believe 
That other beings shall live on with us ; 
That nothing beautiful shall ever die. 

But all in vain to Kane the tropic clime, 
So prodigal of life, offered its stores ; 



THE FINDING OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 187 

It could not win liis truant vigor back, 

Nor stay the tide of life tliat ebbed so fast. 

Day after day passed on, and still he grew 

Each day more feeble, till at last he lay 

Upon his couch, outlooking o'er the sea, 

So weak, so weary, that he could but wish 

The hour he knew was hurrying near so fast 

Were at the threshhold beckoning to him now, 

And he with all the millions were at rest. 

'Twas coming, and he knew it, for he felt 

The air grow heavy with its presence, and 

The light fading beneath the shadow of its wings. 

'Twas coming, and lie did not fear it, for 

He had the peace that waits on faithful souls ; 

Felt, though his life were short, 'twas rounded out 

To full completeness with most noble deeds, 

xVnd he could take it in his hand 

And offer it to Him who knew him well, 

Who was his loving Father, and a Judge 

More merciful than e'en his loving mother. 

So calmly he awaited for the hour. 

It came — 

All sounds grew muffled to his ear, the voice 
Of those who spoke in whispers near his couch 
Sunk into silence, and the forms that stood 
Around his bed became more indistinct, 
Fading, still fading till they were no more. 



188 THE FINDING OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 

The glimmering window-panes grew dusky, and 
The light suffered eclipse ; gray and more gray 
It grew, till total darkness far more deep 
Than that that thralled him in the realm of ice 
Fell round him. Sight, and sound, and feeling, all- 
All senses vanished, and the universe 
Became to him a blank I 

Lo ! suddenly, with a great shock, he felt 
His limbs instinct with vigor, and his heart 
Throbbing with life, and a great wakening light 
Fell on his eye-lids, and he woke, and found 
Himself within a little boat upon 
A stream that bore him onward to a shore 
He saw in the blue distance. Self-propelled, 
Self-guided sailed the little boat right on. 
Oh ! how he marveled at the wondrous light 
That shot its golden arrows all around him ! 
Light ! light ! all light ! a thousand mid-day suns 
Commingled into one were dark beside it, yet 
He saw no sun, nor did his open eyes 
Shrink from the brightness, but dilated to 
Drink in the golden beams ; and all his being thrillec 
As if it fed upon that radiant food. 

Eight onward sped the boat ! 
And plainer grew the land he neared so fast ; 
He saw the mountains in the distance stand, 



THE FINDING OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 189 

Their gorgeous pinnacles uplifted to the clouds, 

And by the golden light around them he could see 

That they Avere flower-crowned to their topmost peaks! 

Far as his sight could reach— and sight now seemed ^ 

To be illimitable — there stood a land 

Allowing with unimaginable splendors ; here 

Far-reaching meadows, green with emerald grass, " 

Radiant with jewel-petaled flowers, and there 

Majestic parks with long green avenues 

Hinting of noble mansions just beyond ; 

There forests swaying to the odorous win.ds 

That came up from the flower-scented mead ; 

Rivers, and brooks, and silvery cascades 

Spanned with a rainbow-arch of amethyst, 

Of sapphire, ruby, emerald, and gold : 

And fountains throwing diamonds in the air ; 

And all about were lovely cottages, 

And goodly mansions, and the golden spires 

Of a great city just beyond the wood 

Shot golden coruscations o'er the sky. 

Then in the air he heard the murmur as 

Of wings innumerable, and melodies 

To which the sweetest sounds of harp and voice 

Were tuneless discord. Joy, too great to be 

Endured in silence, swelled his happy soul, 

And dropping on his knees, with humid eyes 

And voice all tremulous, lie cried : " My God 



190 THE FINDING OF SIR JOHN FKANKLIN. 

I thank tlice for tins blessedness that fills 

My soul, this beauty that Thou givest to my sight! 

Oh! verily, my Father, Thou art Love! 

xVnd I, unworthy as I am, do see 

The vestibule of Heaven !" 

Right onward sped the little boat, and now 
Upon the silver-sanded beach he saw a host 
In radiant apparel, but more radiant 
With joy unspeakable that shed 
A brightness o'er them even in that bright air. 
The foremost of them all, one stood, his feet 
Lapped by the ripples of the stream, and he, 
As near the shore the little boat sped on, 
AValked knee-deep in the water, seized the prow 
And bore it shoreward ; then with smiling face 
Took hold upon his hand, and lifted him 
Ashore, and then my hero knew it was Sir John. 

A moment looked they in each other's eyes, 
Then breast to breast theykissed each other on the cheek, 
And good Sir John, still clasping hand in hand. 
Cried: "Welcome! Friend and Brother! welcome 

here !" 
And all the radiant host with one accord 
Clustered around him, kissed him lovingly. 
And cried : "Dear Friend andBrolhcr! Welcome here!" 



THE FINDING OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 191 

They turned their backs upon the stream which they 
Tliroug'h all eternity would never more recross, 
And like two little children, with their arms 
About each other's necks, my hero and Sir John 
Walked lovingly into the Land of Light. 



l^iTNoY l^~ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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